Long Beach Police Rated Worst in Solving Crimes

The Long Beach Police Department, once extolled as one of the best-run law enforcement agencies in the country, had the worst record of any major city in California in 1989 for solving serious and violent crimes.

Police last year failed to make an arrest in 74% of the rapes reported, 87% of the robberies and 93% of the burglaries--performing only half as well as nine other police departments from Sacramento to San Diego, the latest reports from the California Department of Justice show.

The figures underscore what the officers and the chief have been saying for years: The fifth-largest police agency in California--cited by the RAND Corp. for its exemplary reports and attention to investigative detail in 1975--is today grossly understaffed and severely troubled.

Overall, Long Beach’s arrest rate for all major felonies combined--from murder to car theft--was 14%, the lowest of the cities surveyed.

On the brink of a law enforcement emergency, the city has turned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for help, hiring 43 deputies to begin patrolling the north end of the city this month. City leaders have warned that they might consider dismantling the Police Department and placing Long Beach completely in the hands of the sheriff if service does not improve.

Long Beach also suffered a bigger increase in violent crimes last year than any other major California city, the Department of Justice reported. One murder is being committed every 2 1/2 days, and by the year’s end, the death toll is expected to hit 120--twice the average of past years. That could give each of the department’s 10 homicide detectives 12 cases apiece, double what Los Angeles police consider to be a full caseload, police officials said.

The figures paint a disturbing portrait of a city where, officials say, crime is skyrocketing and the Police Department is scarcely keeping a lid on it. Although Long Beach detectives are known as a highly skilled team, the department says there simply are not enough of them.

“In Long Beach we have a Class 1 fire department and a Police Department that’s a disaster. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we better do something,” said City Councilman Doug Drummond, a retired commander who served with Long Beach police for 29 years. “There are not enough hours for them to pick up crimes even when they have a named suspect. This is tragic.”

As with police in other cities across the country, Long Beach has been stretched to the limit by a crack epidemic, a rising number of street gangs and slashed budgets. It has been further hobbled by a vicious labor war between the determined chief and a powerful police union who have battled over everything from free speech to an officer’s right to wear patent leather shoes.

However, the figures--compiled monthly by the Justice Department and considered a highly reliable indicator of a police department’s performance--speak louder than the angry words that come from within the department:

There were 247 rapes reported in Long Beach last year and police solved 65 of them--26%. By contrast, Santa Ana police solved 81%.

There were 3,763 robberies reported, more than 10 a day. Police solved 487 of them--less than 13%.

There were 8,817 burglaries reported and Long Beach police solved 649 of them--7%.

There were 5,247 assaults reported and police solved 2,164--or 41%. Of 85 murders recorded by the state, police solved 44--or 52% (although Long Beach police say their count shows they actually had 97 homicides and cleared 61% of those cases.)

For all major crimes combined--including homicides, assaults and others--Long Beach police took 42,605 reports and made arrests in 5,874 cases, less than 14%.

A case is considered solved when someone is arrested, charged and turned over to the court for prosecution, the Department of Justice said.

In 1969, Long Beach had about 700 police officers to protect 300,000 citizens; today, 691 are expected to protect a city of 450,000. The number shrivels to 580 when vacancies and injuries are taken into account.

Citizens complain often at City Council meetings about slow response times and lack of police service. Detectives scramble to process suspects in custody within the 48 hours required by the law, leaving virtually no time to chase clues on other cases. Investigators talk routinely about the rapist or cat burglar they could arrest with a little legwork if they only had the time.

“We are no longer investigators, we are paper pushers,” a veteran detective said. “If you come home tonight and find your house burglarized, don’t expect to hear from us unless a neighbor saw who did it or we get a fingerprint. We do not have the opportunity to contact victims and ask questions. We do not have the opportunity to contact witnesses.”

The detective bureau is severely undermanned and investigators say rape files sometimes sit on their desks for as long as six months without attention.

Critics question the wisdom of how detectives are deployed. Investigators closing in on the so-called “Messenger of God” rapist--a man who was carving crucifixes into his victims’ backs and slicing off their hair--complained that they were pulled from the case one morning last week to spend three hours arresting truants.

In one case, officials and court records said, a 12-year-old Long Beach girl was raped by her aunt’s boyfriend in August, 1989. The family waited a month to report the rape and the file, lost in the shuffle of transferring and overworked detectives, sat on a desk for seven more months. By then, the family had moved from the apartment where the crime occurred and evidence was lost, officers and a prosecutor said.

The case went to trial. The jury deadlocked. The prosecutor struck a deal, the defendant pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and was sentenced to 180 days in jail with three years’ probation. He was credited for time served and released. The minimum sentence on such a crime should have been three years in state prison, prosecutors said.

“We want to work all of these cases as diligently as we possibly can and in this case we probably didn’t,” Deputy Police Chief Robert Luman said. “The person was brought to justice, but we want to do a better job.”

Prosecutors say a growing number of cases are dismissed, lost or plea-bargained away because detectives are too busy to investigate thoroughly.

“They bring cases down at the last minute and sometimes we have to say let the suspect go because we’re not satisfied with the investigation,” said City Prosecutor John Vander Lans. “Are there more people running loose because of this situation? I’m sure you could make a case for it.”

It was last winter that an elderly woman called police to report that a man had beaten and raped her. A Long Beach detective opened a case file and placed it atop all the other files piled high on a desk.

Investigators think they know who did it, but it has been six months and they have not made an arrest. They have not even had the time to make a phone call, one of them said.

“There are child care centers that should be investigated but you put it on the back burner and you think, ‘My God, I should do something,’ ” said a detective who investigates sexual assaults. “But what am I going to do--call them and say, ‘I’m sorry, but we need six more detectives?’ ”

The battle against crime in the streets is rivaled only by the one that rages inside the department.

There, Police Chief Lawrence Binkley, a no-nonsense, former Los Angeles Police Department officer, and the union that represents about 600 of the 691 sworn officers have been locked in a vicious war for more than two years.

The chief says officers have twice threatened his life. “Kill Kell,” a message aimed at Mayor Ernie Kell, was recently found scrawled on a Police Department wall.

The rank-and-file officers say morale has bottomed out. Transfers out of the department are running higher this year than they have in a decade. Nearly half the force recently handed their 49-year-old chief a vote of no confidence.

Officers complain that Binkley runs the department like a classroom and punishes unfairly. In at least one case last June, a federal court judge agreed: When Binkley reprimanded an officer for criticizing the department to a television reporter, the officer sued him for free speech infringement and won.

The chief says the Long Beach police were “unstaffed, undisciplined, uncontrolled and unhappy” when he inherited them in 1987. Since then, he says, he has whipped the department into shape.

“We have guys who take two lunch hours,” Binkley, a tall, stern-faced man, said. “We have cases of prisoners handcuffed and beaten, officers involved in narcotic sales, officers using narcotics, officers involved with prostitutes, officers stealing money from inmates, officers raping 17-year-old girls, officers beating mothers in front of kids. . . . Which one of them should I not have disciplined?”

What has come to be known as the Don Jackson incident--in which a television crew secretly taped an officer apparently shoving a black man into a plate-glass window--prompted Binkley to review the use of force last year.

He set up a phone sting that he says caught officers refusing to take complaints about the police from the public. Four sergeants now spend two days a week tailing their comrades to ensure, among other things, that lunches are held to an hour and full price is paid for meals. Complaints of misconduct shot up to 900 last year--three times what they were the year before he took over, department statistics show.

The examples of gross misconduct were committed by a few, union leaders say, and Binkley is punishing the many.

“One police lieutenant had consensual sex with a 17-year-old girl. He should not be with us and he is not,” union president Mike Tracy said. “But one clown doesn’t make a circus.”

In fear that internal affairs will investigate them, some officers say they avoid altercations that might require even reasonable force.

“It used to be that bad guys knew if they came to Long Beach, they’d go to jail. If they tried to flee, we’d chase them all the way to Arizona to catch them. Not any more,” a sergeant said. “Now we just wave goodby.”

City officials promise that the arrival of deputies will improve service instantly. But many predict it is the first step toward the destruction of the 84-year-old Police Department.

“To say we should have a Long Beach Police Department because we’ve always had one is wrong,” Councilman Drummond said. “Dismantling a police department is not embarrassing. When the public can’t get officers to answer emergency calls in three minutes, that’s embarrassing.”

CRIMES REPORTED AND SOLVED IN MAJOR CITIES

A look at crimes in selected categories reported in the state’s 10 largest cities--and the rate at which they were solved--as reported in a study by the California Department of Justice. Police consider a case solved once a suspect is arrested or appears in court. The figures are from 1989.

RAPE Percent City Reported Solved Solved Anaheim 113 81 71.68% Fresno 234 136 58.12% Long Beach 247 65 26.32% Los Angeles 1,996 970 48.60% Oakland 442 292 66.06% Sacramento 187 91 48.66% San Diego 410 195 47.56% San Francisco 380 284 74.74% San Jose 399 225 56.39% Santa Ana 74 60 81.08%

*Figures in the TOTAL columns include data from other statistical categories not presented here.

ROBBERY Percent City Reported Solved Solved Anaheim 755 312 41.32% Fresno 1,525 502 32.92% Long Beach 3,763 487 12.94% Los Angeles 31,063 6,891 22.18% Oakland 3,224 972 30.15% Sacramento 1,654 403 24.37% San Diego 3,585 1,164 32.47% San Francisco 5,005 1,185 23.68% San Jose 995 417 41.91% Santa Ana 1,125 392 34.84%

BURGLARY Percent City Reported Solved Solved Anaheim 9,128 1,845 20.21% Fresno 18,654 4,454 23.88% Long Beach 8,817 649 7.36% Los Angeles 51,209 7,399 14.45% Oakland 9,874 1,065 10.79% Sacramento 7,481 617 8.25% San Diego 17,495 1,984 11.34% San Francisco 37,316 6,217 16.66% San Jose 6,318 472 7.47% Santa Ana 3,648 377 10.33%

TOTAL* Percent City Reported Solved Solved Anaheim 3,017 503 16.67% Fresno 40,210 11,713 29.13% Long Beach 42,605 5,874 13.79% Los Angeles 348,498 92,184 26.45% Oakland 53,287 12,028 22.57% Sacramento 39,564 9,037 22.84% San Diego 110,246 24,117 21.88% San Francisco 75,102 14,447 19.24% San Jose 46,380 12,366 26.66% Santa Ana 22,470 4,782 21.28