Yaroslavsky Drops Bid for City Reward in Slaying

Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky on Thursday withdrew his request for a $25,000, city-sponsored reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer of a 27-year-old woman in Westwood, saying that the effort had created an “atmosphere of divisiveness.”

Yaroslavsky, who represents the 5th Council District, which includes Westwood, explained that he withdrew the reward request because Westwood Village merchants had already independently raised a $10,000 reward and because the council debate over the reward effort had “grown too acrimonious.”

Several council colleagues had criticized Yaroslavsky’s effort, claiming that unsolved gang-related murders of innocent victims in South-Central Los Angeles had not received similar attention to last week’s killing of Karen Toshima. The council can vote to offer up to $25,000 in reward money in criminal cases that are deemed to have communitywide impact.

“The discussion over the reward has become so divisive among council members that it would not serve any constructive purpose to continue the debate over whether or not to pay it,” Yaroslavsky said.

Reconsideration Urged

But at least one council member who had planned to amend Yaroslavsky’s reward request said the decision to withdraw it was a mistake. Tenth District Councilman Nate Holden, who had said earlier in the week that he wanted to offer rewards in the unsolved murders of any innocent victims of gang-related killings, urged Yaroslavsky to reconsider his decision.

“I think he should leave the request for reward in place,” Holden said. “The murderer is still out there at large. If the money can help us apprehend whoever killed (Toshima), let’s use it.”

Yaroslavsky said he would prefer that a “united council” deal with the issue of hiring more police. The council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Yaroslavsky’s request to hire 150 more police officers by the end of the fiscal year.

“We should all be concerned about getting more police on the streets,” he said.

The need for more police officers was also the top priority at a hastily called demonstration attended by 250 people Thursday at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Crenshaw District. State Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) was joined by Holden and other South-Central community and religious leaders in calling for a restructuring of the Police Department’s deployment practices.

“We would like for (Police Department officials) to justify the inequity in deployment,” Waters said. “We want (the police) to do what they’re supposed to do--stop the gangs and get rid of the dope.”

The department deploys its officers using the “uniformed deployment formula,” a method in which all crimes are given the same weight and then considered with other factors, such as the value of stolen property, officer overtime and population density.

The City Council voted in January, 1985, to hire a consultant to study the formula. Yaroslavsky, who has agreed with the need to find new ways to deploy police officers, said he expects the consultant’s report to be issued within four to six weeks.

But Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said Wednesday that the long-awaited study on the patrol formula will be presented to the city in about three months and may anger some council members.

“Some of you are going to get a few more, and some of you are going to get a few less. And there’s going to be some dissatisfaction,” Gates warned.

Meanwhile, police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said the 14 additional police officers who are being indefinitely assigned to Westwood Village to curb gang violence will “come primarily from the (Police Department’s) West Los Angeles station.”

Police officials had been criticized by some South-Central leaders for planning to take police officers from other areas to patrol the village. Booth said that most of the temporarily assigned officers will come from either the West Los Angeles Division or the department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit based in West Los Angeles.

Booth acknowledged that a “small dab” of the force might come from the department’s Metropolitan Division, an all-purpose unit now on assignment in South-Central Los Angeles.

In West Los Angeles, CRASH Lt. Gabriel E. Ornelas said “encouraging progress” was being made in the investigation of Toshima’s death, but he would not discuss the new developments.

Deputy Police Chief Ronald A. Frankle said that as of Thursday afternoon the case was being pursued by two primary investigators and two assisting detectives from the CRASH unit.