Two Groups Urge Gates to Redeploy Patrol Force

Black and Latino leaders of two influential community groups called on Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on Monday to immediately heed a study released last week that would scrap the way patrol officers are deployed and assign more of them to inner-city neighborhoods.

Officials of the South-Central Organizing Committee and the United Neighborhoods Organization hailed the city-commissioned study as a substantiation of their long-held belief that Los Angeles’ minority areas are patrolled by too few police officers.

They also criticized Gates for what they contend are too many officers working behind desks, instead of on the streets.

“The war on crime,” observed United Neighborhoods leader Louis R. Negrete, “is going to be won by (patrol cars), not a bunch of Jack Webbs sitting around waiting for something to happen.”

A spokesman for Gates, however, reiterated Monday that the chief will not consider any recommendations made in the study prepared by Public Administration Service, a Virginia-based “think tank,” until the 122-page document has been carefully reviewed. That process could take months.

The 10-month, $183,000 study was ordered by the civilian-run Los Angeles Police Commission after complaints by politicians and citizen activists that criteria used by the Police Department to allocate its discretionary patrol forces favor more affluent neighborhoods over the city’s minority communities.

Those discretionary forces represent 1,210 officers, about one-third of the 3,747 who are currently assigned patrol duties in the 7,250-member force.

Based on fiscal 1986-1987 police statistics, the study concluded that the Police Department’s response time to emergency calls throughout the city is unacceptably slow, averaging 12.25 minutes--75% longer than a recommended 7-minute goal. That compares to an average of 5.9 minutes for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, according to sheriff’s statistics.

Minority Area

Slowest emergency response times were found in the Police Department’s South Bureau, a heavily minority area covering much of South and Central Los Angeles, where it took an average 12.8 minutes for units to respond to emergency calls.

“The root cause of long response times for emergency calls for service is dispatch delay caused by lack of available patrol units,” the report said. “The total deployment system utilized in Los Angeles should be changed so as to improve utilization of patrol officers.”

At a joint press conference Monday with South-Central Organizing Committee leaders, United Neighborhoods’ Negrete urged Gates to makes those changes “. . . in a matter of days.”

“The formula is outdated, discriminatory and it’s got to go,” said Negrete, a professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Los Angeles. “This is an issue that goes to civil rights, to justice and to the value of all neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles.”

Negrete’s organization, founded 11 years ago, claims a membership of 56,000 families, primarily in East and Central Los Angeles. The 7-year-old South-Central Organizing Committee claims a roster of 78,000 families.

Some residents of South-Central Los Angeles have said that more black officers are needed there to better understand the predominantly black community.

But Monday, South-Central Organizing Committee spokeswoman Barbara Thomas said her organization is not concerned with the ethnicity of any additional officers who may be assigned there.

“White, green, black or blue--as long as they’re a part of this community, it doesn’t matter,” Thomas said.