Help Is on Way, Long Beach’s Chief Tells His Officers

Responding to state crime statistics that show his officers trailing badly in solving many serious crimes, Long Beach Police Chief Lawrence Binkley said Friday that the department has been grossly neglected for 15 years but that “help is on the way.”

The controversial 49-year-old chief acknowledged the crime figures are “staggering,” but said the department has been saddled with broken equipment, an outdated police lab and skeleton staffing for years.

There are about 1.7 police for every 1,000 citizens in Long Beach, compared to 2.6 per thousand in Los Angeles, Binkley said. The result, he conceded, is showing up in the latest California Department of Justice statistics that monitor the performance of police departments.

According to the statistics, Long Beach police trailed nine major cities in California in solving rapes, robberies and burglaries. For all major crimes combined, Long Beach police solved 14%--a performance worse than any of the cities surveyed from Sacramento to San Diego.

But Binkley said the addition of 43 sheriff’s deputies to assist the beleaguered department and several academy recruits due to arrive by November will help his 650 officers and detectives “march back up” to fight a relentless crime wave.

“Long Beach has some of the finest police detectives anywhere in the nation. . . . There are just not enough of them,” Binkley said. “And the victims are the citizens and the cops--who really are great cops.”

The city has arranged for the sheriff’s deputies to begin patrolling the north end of town in November, freeing dozens of local officers to concentrate on other parts of the city. That assistance also will reduce the workload in the detective bureau by 20%, Binkley said.

“I anticipate nothing but better policing in this city,” Binkley said.

Detectives complained in recent interviews of being so overworked that rape cases can sit as long as six months on a desk without attention. Although the detective team has a first-rate reputation with the district attorney’s office, prosecutors say some cases are lost in trial, dismissed or plea bargained away because the investigators are too stretched to do a thorough job.

Some critics have complained that Binkley’s tough management style has driven morale to the ground, further crippling a department already struggling with a bare-bones budget and a staff to match.

Binkley said he was hired three years ago to bring the department into the era of modern policing. When he arrived, he said, he found detectives’ cars that wouldn’t start and radios that were out of date. The narcotics team had no cellular phones, and some detectives were without bullet-proof vests. The helicopters, he said, were worn out, having flown 16 hours a day for 20 years.

The chief said he persuaded the city to hire 166 more officers. Even so, the department remains at the same staffing level it was at 10 years ago. Binkley also recently won two new helicopters, ordered hours of tough training and imposed strict discipline. He said he doesn’t expect to be liked for all of it.

“Any time you have an organization that has been neglected as long as this police department has, the officers will get angry. And they are angry at their chief,” he said. “But they’ll get over it.

“What I really demand is that they work hard and treat the citizens well. If they don’t like that, they should go someplace else.”

Meanwhile, city officials reacted to the figures with some astonishment.

“I was surprised and disappointed. We should have done better,” said Mayor Ernie Kell. “But we are getting the situation under control.”

“These are just devastating comparisons,” said City Councilman Les Robbins, who also is a sergeant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “This is an indictment of the entire organization. I don’t see how anybody, from the chief on down, can say ‘It ain’t my fault.’ Everyone has to share in some of the blame for this.”

Some officers have expressed concern that importing sheriff’s deputies to protect a city that has been in the hands of a local police department for 84 years is the beginning of the end for the Long Beach station.

But Binkley stressed that it is just a reprieve to help the department bounce back. “If there is an increase in policing as we march back up, they will all be a lot happier,” he said.