LAPD to Disband Secret Theft Unit : Police: Action taken to cut costs and to add uniformed officers to the street. 60 Transportation Department officers also will be laid off.

The Los Angeles Police Department is shutting down one of its most highly valued, specialized undercover units to cut costs and put more uniformed officers back on the street.

The unit, designed for recovering stolen property and arresting thieves and fences, is credited with hundreds of arrests and millions of dollars in returned property. It also has a conviction rate nearing 100% because most of the cases it cracked were videotaped, authorities said.

In a similar move, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation on Thursday announced that it will lay off 60 probationary traffic officers June 29.

Both actions are connected to the City Council’s decision in May to have each of the city’s 30 departments find additional money in their budgets for the fiscal year starting July 1.

Specifically, the Police, Fire and Sanitation departments must trim their budgets by 1%, while the other departments must shave their costs 6%, said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the council’s Finance Committee.

“We had to make cuts,” Yaroslavsky said. “We had created more positions than we could afford.”

In an intradepartmental letter obtained by The Times, Assistant Chief Robert L. Vernon informed commanding officers of the Stolen Property Network Disruption Project that “despite this dissonant final chord, they should be commended for an outstanding effort.”

“It is embarrassing that a proven success which benefits both the citizens of this city and our overall law enforcement mission,” Vernon said in the letter, “has to come to such a tragic end.”

The decision to fold the 2-year-old unit has drawn unusual resistance from within its ranks, as well as from company officials who have recovered property ranging from computers heisted from freight trains to new cars stolen off production lines.

“We had a nickname, the ‘Secret Police,’ because half of the department didn’t even know we existed,” said an officer assigned to the 14-member unit made up of officers on loan from throughout the department. “It’s a damn shame they are going to shut us down.”

The unit started out as a sophisticated storefront sting operation funded by a state grant. It targeted thieves and those who fence booty ranging from crates of alphabet soup to car antennas and from televisions to Porsches.

But state funds to operate the unit dried up nine months ago, leaving the department no choice but to close the storefront sting. Since then, the unit has conducted a variety of investigations with equipment donated by people and companies who have enlisted its assistance.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates has received 20 letters from companies and people protesting the cancellation of the unit, which specialized in videotaping its sting operations.

One of those letters was sent by Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Jacobs, who has prosecuted many of the cases filed by the unit.

“I’d like to see this unit continue--they’ve made pretty good cases and most of the defendants pleaded guilty,” Jacobs said. “When you’re involved in a crime that has been secretly videotaped it’s pretty hard to say you weren’t involved.”

James S. Allen, executive director of a group that fights cable and satellite piracy, informed Gates that “the disbanding of this project would mean a considerable loss of expertise to the LAPD and a substantial void in the cable industry’s effort to combat piracy in the Los Angeles area.”

Lt. Gary Rogers of the Southern Pacific Railroad Police said, “These guys are constantly astounding me.”

“This unit is so effective, they’d target one group and develop intelligence that would lead them to discover other multimillion-dollar fraud operations,” said Rogers, standing beside a 45-foot-long trailer containing more than $100,000 worth of stolen computers, televisions, video recorders and car parts recovered with the help of the anti-theft unit. “They are the most effective small law enforcement operation I’ve ever seen.”

Officers assigned to the unit--all of whom requested anonymity--expressed dismay and surprise that the department would fold such a highly productive and relatively trouble-free operation.

“A lot of hard-core and white-collar criminals have been going to jail because of us,” said one officer assigned to the unit. “I don’t understand it. Not once have we had an officer-involved shooting or even a sick day requested by an officer in the unit.”

Another officer assigned to the special detail said the department should reconsider its decision because the unit has proven that it can operate “on donations.”

“For the past nine months, we haven’t spent a dime of the city’s money,” the officer said.

But Cmdr. Robert Gil said it is unlikely that the unit will be revived any time soon.

“If we ever get the money again, we’d love to have a unit like that working in this city--but it’s not in the cards right now,” Gil said. “It’s just a fiscal fact of life.”

Meanwhile, the 60 traffic officers who learned that they would be out of a job on June 29 planned to meet at a downtown restaurant Thursday night to discuss their options.

“I had heard rumors that there might be a layoff a month ago,” said one of the traffic officers. “But the managers said, ‘Don’t worry about it because it will never happen.’ Well, here we are.”

City Administrative Officer Kieth Comrie said the layoff was necessary because Department of Transportation officials said they could only achieve half of a required $3-million cutback in their budget through attrition.

Julie Butcher, representative of the Service Employees International Union, however, argued that “to us it gives the appearance of being a form of retaliation from the mayor’s office against traffic officers for being vocal about the quota system under which they work.”

Many of the 562 traffic officers employed by the city have complained that they are under so much pressure to write tickets that they issue questionable citations in order to meet a daily quota. Parking officials deny there is a quota.