LAPD Does the Honors for Heroes in Its Ranks

In what authorities deemed “The Year of the Gang” because gang-related homicides topped 400 in Los Angeles County, detectives from a juvenile narcotics unit in South-Central Los Angeles seized dozens of guns and $800,000 worth of drugs.

For their work that year, 1988, the five detectives were honored Thursday during the Los Angeles Police Department’s 11th annual Recognition Day awards ceremony held in Studio City.

They were among 105 police officers and civilian employees who were honored for showing bravery in acts ranging from battling drug traffic to calming a suicidal woman to attempting to save a drowning woman who had driven her Jaguar into her Brentwood swimming pool.

The detectives from South Bureau’s juvenile narcotics squad, one of four special units in the city that bust young drug dealers and their suppliers, said at the awards ceremony that they were proud of their arrest and seizure record.

In 1988, the five men seized 95 guns in their work with the South Bureau gang unit, which patrols the south end of Los Angeles, from South-Central to San Pedro.

“We did it without firing a shot,” Detective Frank Goldberg said. “What can I say--we’re just 110-percenters.”

But Goldberg, sounding a familiar theme, said that with only five officers the unit is barely able to make a dent in narcotics activity among youngsters, many of whom are in gangs.

Despite a rising number of LAPD officers and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies, gang-related homicides skyrocketed to a record 570 in 1989, outstripping 1988’s total of 452, according to statistics from both departments.

Another group of narcotics officers--a northeast San Fernando Valley unit that conducts undercover busts of street-level drug dealers--also received a meritorious unit citation. The only one of its kind in the city composed of patrol officers instead of detectives, the unit has arrested 1,000 dealers since its inception almost two years ago, said Sgt. Cary Krebs, head of the unit.

“There will never be a need to put up barricades to keep out drug dealers in Pacoima and other areas of the Foothill division,” Krebs said. “We have found we can rid the neighborhoods of drug dealers by being out there day and night busting people.”

Not all the awards went to officers fighting gangs or drug traffic.

Five members of the bomb squad, four of whom were unable to pick up their medals Thursday because they were in West Los Angeles dealing with a bomb threat there, also were honored.

Throughout the ceremony, LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates and Dodgers’ announcer Vin Scully constantly reminded the audience of officers and their families that the lives of the bomb squad detectives were in danger because a pickup truck loaded with suspected explosives had burst into flames outside Internal Revenue Service offices on Olympic Boulevard, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.

But Officer Ken Lockwood, who picked up the award for the squad, played down the unit’s bravery, saying, “You are trained to do a job and you do it.”

Twenty-seven officers received decorative medals for acts of bravery and service. Officer Karen L. Kubly, the only woman to receive a medal for bravery, used Spanish she had learned in the Police Academy to calm a 67-year-old intoxicated woman while her partners grabbed the woman off the edge of the roof of a Hollywood apartment house.

And Officer John Lopata was honored for diving into a Brentwood swimming pool to rescue an 81-year-old woman whose Jaguar had sunk to the bottom. The woman died despite Lopata’s efforts.