Police Panel OKs Plan for Movie Set Security Hiring

Seeking to regulate what some contend is a police force within the police force, the Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday approved a plan that would allow Chief Daryl F. Gates to select the police retirees and off-duty officers who moonlight as guards on movie sets.

The commission’s unanimous vote represented the first tangible step in ending a controversy that has embroiled police administrators and the entertainment industry for more than a decade.

“It’s a compromise in many respects,” Gates said of the vote, “but I think that this will do exactly what I want done.”

What Gates has long wanted to do is clamp down on a microcosm of local law enforcement in which off-duty and retired officers wear their uniforms while answering not to the city, but to Hollywood studios.

Act as Middlemen

The arrangement is run by about a dozen local entrepreneurs known in show business parlance as “cop wranglers.” They act as middlemen in arranging studio-paid security jobs for an estimated 500 officers and retirees who regularly work on movie sets and television filming locations.

About half of the wranglers, known more formally as police coordinators, are the wives of policemen. The others are either retired or active officers.

Police administrators contend that officers whose off-duty jobs are arranged by the coordinators are sometimes more loyal to them and to the studios than they are to the public, raising legal as well as ethical issues. Gates and other senior police officials have cited past incidents in which officers have claimed to be too ill to go on duty, only to be seen hours later working on a film set.

In 1985, Gates proposed that the department take over the job of coordinating movie set security, including selecting the retirees and active officers who work the jobs. At the same time, Gates recommended that for liability purposes, active officers who moonlight on movie sets be considered on-duty and that they be paid overtime by the studios.

Bristled at Proposal

Several Hollywood executives, however, bristled at the proposal, warning that paying overtime wages and dealing with departmental bureaucracy could drive up their production costs, forcing them to film outside Los Angeles. Police coordinators also opposed the idea because it likely would have put them out of business.

Under the plan given tentative approval Tuesday, cop wranglers would continue to coordinate television and movie set security, but they could employ only those retirees and active officers whom Gates deems “eligible.” Those who would receive work permits from Gates would first be made to sign a “notice of compliance” requiring that they follow “department procedures for appearance, conduct and duty.”

At the same time, studios would be required to indemnify the city against any legal liability were an officer to become involved in a controversial incident while moonlighting.

Both wranglers and studio executives on Tuesday expressed support of the Police Commission’s vote, which directed that the city attorney’s office draft a municipal ordinance on the matter. The ordinance would first have to be approved by the City Council before it can be enacted--a process expected to take at least three months.

“This is a marvelous thing,” said Jack Foreman, vice president and general manager of Warner Hollywood Studios. “This is going to be a very workable solution, as good for the city as it is for us.”