City May Request Gulf Exemption for Officers
The city of Los Angeles may ask the military to exempt reserve police officers and firefighters from being called into active duty because they are needed to fight “a war waging here,” City Councilman Nate Holden said this week.
Holden, who wrote to President Bush asking that reservist police officers be overlooked for active duty because of the nature of their jobs, said 114 people have been killed in Los Angeles since the U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf began seven weeks ago. In addition, Holden said, the city’s murder rate is up 12% over this time last year.
George Kundahl, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, said in a letter to Holden that the city is responsible for notifying the appropriate military authorities as to which city employees should be screened from the Ready Reserve and placed in “non-mobilizable positions.”
“As you can see, there’s a war waging here and we need trained police officers to combat it to the fullest extent possible,” Holden told a City Hall news conference.
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