Thin Blue Line Drawn in LAX Turf War : Police: Airport officers feel threatened by a behind-the-scenes takeover attempt by the LAPD over who will patrol the area.

Los Angeles International Airport’s independent police force, which four years ago was rife with corruption and internal problems but has since undergone a multimillion-dollar overhaul, now faces a new threat--a behind-the-scenes takeover attempt by the Los Angeles Police Department.

At stake in the aggressive turf war is who will patrol the airport, one of the busiest in the nation.

The debate over the future of the 222-member Airport Police Department--one of the largest police agencies in Southern California--underscores fears among many specialized police officers in the city and county that both Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and Sheriff Sherman Block are conducting back-door campaigns to expand their empires. Critics contend that an effort is under way to put numerous smaller, specialized police agencies--such as housing authority police, harbor police and transit police--out of business.

“It kind of reminds me of corporate takeovers,” said Larry Malmberg, president of the 35,000-member Peace Officers Research Assn. of California. “Maybe they’ve been taking lessons from T. Boone Pickens and Donald Trump.”

Gates and Block deny any such attempt, saying they are only interested in upgrading the quality of police service in the region. “As far as any attempt on our part to eliminate the agencies or take over other agencies’ responsibilities, that’s not an issue that’s been given any thought to,” Block said.

But a spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who has intervened in the dispute, has acknowledged that the recent moves may be the first step in that direction. “The mayor is concerned about the proliferation of non-LAPD agencies within the city, namely the airport police, housing police and others,” spokesman Bill Chandler said. “It is possible that this may be the first place we look, but not the only one.”

Waged quietly in private meetings, the LAPD campaign to replace the airport police began in February, when Gates suggested to officials at the city Department of Airports that his officers, who maintain a small, 31-member detail at the airport, take over all law enforcement duties there.

LAPD officers have complained about a lack of professionalism among airport police officers, saying in an internal report that “deficiencies have existed over a long period of time.” But airport officials say they are satisfied with their force’s performance.

Bradley has ordered an ad hoc committee to study Gates’ idea, which is opposed by the airport officials. The panel, made up of three LAPD representatives and four airport officials, met for the first time Thursday in closed session.

The maneuvering has infuriated airport police officers, particularly because Gates’ proposal comes after the airport department spent $1.7 million for a consultant to revamp the force. The airport department also spent $3 million for a new police station, $1 million for a new firing range and, within the last four years, has been allotting $3 million to $4 million a year in salaries for newly hired officers.

“It’s very disheartening,” said LaPonda J. Stanford, president of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Assn., which represents 182 union officers at the airport. “The airport has spent a lot of money, millions of dollars to professionalize us. . . . If they (LAPD) were going to take us over they should have done it four years ago and $7 million ago.”

Airport officials, too, say they are stumped by the timing of the plan. “I am baffled,” said Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the vice president of the Airport Commission.

Cochran created a stir two years ago when he suggested that the LAPD might be brought in to replace the airport police. But he now says there is no need for such a move. “We’ve really gone through a major overhaul to make that a first-class police department and we believe we have done that,” he said.

Like other so-called “limited-authority,” or specialized, police agencies, the airport police are considered peace officers under California law. They are trained at the same academies as sheriff’s deputies and LAPD officers, are permitted to carry guns and to make arrests.

Generally, such independent departments share jurisdiction with a municipal police force. At the airport, the officers--who also operate alongside federal drug agents, customs officials, immigration authorities and FBI agents--handle traffic flow, parking violations and routine arrests, while LAPD officers conduct criminal investigations.

According to a report prepared by Airport Police Chief Gilbert Sandoval--himself a former LAPD lieutenant--the LAX officers responded to 29,499 calls last year and made more than 1,100 arrests, including 350 for felonies.

The officers consider themselves regular cops. “We have theft, we have burglary from motor vehicles, we even have an occasional rape,” Stanford said.

But Stanford and other specialized police officers said they sense a lack of respect from the LAPD, from sheriff’s deputies and even citizens who, they say, often confuse them with private security guards.

“People look at, for instance, RTD police or the school police and they go, ‘Well, you’re not real police,’ ” RTD Officer Shari Barberic said.

Those feelings surfaced two weeks ago when--under pressure from Bradley and the county Board of Supervisors--the Southern California Rapid Transit District voted to hire sheriff’s deputies, rather than its own transit police, to patrol the new light rail line that will connect Los Angeles to Long Beach.

Ever since, the transit and airport police have claimed that Gates and Block are conspiring to force them out of business and take advantage of the money that pays their salaries--money that comes not from taxpayers but from revenues generated by the independent city agencies that employ the officers.

“I think it’s just a real case of empire-building,” Barberic said. “Obviously, we wouldn’t even be here as specialized agencies if local law enforcement had been responsive to these specialized needs in the first place.”

According to Malmberg, limited-authority police forces have flourished because municipal law enforcement agencies have always been too strapped to handle the needs of airports, harbors and school districts.

“Many of these districts have brought in men and women as district police offices, have trained them and educated them and they have good, professional peace officers working there,” Malmberg said.

But both Block and Gates said they are concerned that, as Block said, “there have been too many small, specialized, limited-authority law enforcement agencies created.” Gates, through a spokesman, expressed a similar view.

In an unsigned internal report obtained by The Times, LAPD officers outlined a litany of gripes about the airport police. The report alleged that airport police officers write unacceptable reports, conduct improper investigations, use “questionable field tactics” and respond to calls outside the airport.

In addition, it complained that airport officers are usurping LAPD’s duties and have on at least two occasions told nearby hotels and businesses that they--and not the LAPD--are the primary police force at Los Angeles International Airport.

Although LAPD Cmdr. William Booth would not say who authored the document, he did confirm that it was “put together by some of our staff people . . . (and) it does pertain to issues that we feel need to be discussed by the committee. Those are real problems that need to be addressed.”

But Donald Miller, deputy executive director of the Department of Airports, said the report is rife with inaccuracies.

“Without going item by item, we feel that almost the entire report is distorted,” he said. “We don’t give any credibility to the report.”

Airport officials and even their own police officers acknowledge that four years ago, the report would have indeed been accurate. “We were a police force in disarray,” Stanford said. “Even I would have to admit that.”

At the time, the force was torn apart by citizen complaints, charges of racial discrimination against minority officers and an LAPD investigation that uncovered evidence of embezzlement, extortion, conspiracy to commit bribery and misappropriation of public funds by officers, including its former chief.

The Department of Airports then hired consultant Joseph T. Rouzan, the former chief of both the Inglewood and Compton police departments, to revamp the beleaguered force. Rouzan, a former LAPD captain, completely reorganized the airport department, arranged for the officers to receive additional training and helped bring in new management.

Rouzan said he cannot understand why the LAPD is complaining. “My whole program was to pattern that agency as close as possible to the Los Angles Police Department,” he said.