Long Beach’s Poor Record of Solving Crime Cited by State

The Long Beach Police Department, which had the worst record of any major department in California last year for solving serious crimes, has had the worst ranking in the state for most of the last 15 years, according to figures from the California Department of Justice.

Eleven times in the last 15 years, Long Beach police ranked at the bottom of the state’s largest cities in solving serious crime.

In a recent report to the City Council, City Manager James Hankla attributed the low rate of solving crime to several factors, including understaffing in the detective bureau, but he did not explain why the department has historically performed poorly in solving crimes.

“We don’t reach a conclusion in this report of why it’s been going downhill for 15 years,” said John Shirey, an assistant city manager.

City officials did offer several explanations of why the department has not done well in recent years. The most striking reason is that a high number of officers take time off because of job-related injuries.

Long Beach police claim injury status nearly three times more often than the statewide police average, according to the report. Once off work, they take twice as long to return to the job, compared to their counterparts throughout the state.

The numbers have angered city officials, who accuse officers of abusing the system. “They don’t want to come to work, so they milk it for a couple of months,” complained Councilman Les Robbins.

Officials with the Police Officers Assn. argue that more officers are getting injured because their fellow officers are not arriving quickly enough to assist them in dangerous situations. “It boils down to a lack of manpower,” said Mike Minton, a union director.

An increasing number of officers are also taking disability retirements this year, nearly twice as many as the average for the last 15 years.

Although the highs and lows for the last 15 years appear to be cyclic, the city has averaged 11.5 disability retirements per year. As of Nov. 8, 22 officers received a disability retirement, compared to 13 last year.

Disability retirement pays 50% of officers’ salaries for life and allows them to work other jobs.

Some city officials and community leaders began to question disability retirements after two young officers retired recently, citing psychological problems stemming from their involvement in a sting operation.

During a secretly filmed confrontation, involving former Hawthorne police sergeant and civil-rights activist Don Jackson, one of the officers appeared to push Jackson through a plate-glass window. The incident was subsequently shown on national television. The officer was charged with assault, and both he and his partner were also charged with falsifying a police report about the incident. A trial is pending.

“There is no question that some officers are abusing the system,” said Mayor Ernie Kell.

The report, which the City Council this month referred to a committee for review, followed a recent Times story that cited the Long Beach Police Department as the agency with the worst record of any major California city last year for solving serious and violent crimes.

The report noted that Long Beach police often ranked on the bottom of the list, compared to the statewide average and to the rates of 10 major cities--Anaheim, Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Ana.

In the last 15 years, Long Beach police had the worst record in solving crimes every year except for 1988, 1981, 1976 and 1975. Last year, for example, the city solved 14.2% of its cases, compared to the statewide average of 22%, according to the report.

The city’s best years were in 1987, when police solved 17.2%, and 1975, when they solved 17.5%.

The report also noted that:

* In the first nine months of this year, 30 of every 100 officers took a paid leave citing a job-related injury, compared to the statewide average of 10.7. Officers off work lost an average 51.7 days last year, compared to the statewide average estimated at 19.5 days.

* Despite staffing increases, the ratio of detectives to patrol officers has decreased over the last 15 years. In 1975, for example, the department had 0.57 detectives for every officer in the field. Today, there are 0.35 detectives for every officer. Meanwhile, calls for police service increased from 303,802 in 1983 to 478,377 in 1989, a 57.5% increase.

* The department has lost officers at an increasing rate, most through disability retirements, regular retirements and resignations. As of Oct. 31, 9.8% of the officers have left so far this year, compared to 6.6% last year and 4.9% in 1988.

Kell and Councilman Tom Clark said they were troubled that Long Beach has historically had a poor record in clearing crimes. “We need to do something to improve that,” Clark said.

Councilman Warren Harwood said he was not surprised. “Whenever there’s a (police) list now, Long Beach always seems to be on the bottom. We know the department isn’t doing well.”

Councilman Robbins, a sheriff’s deputy, and Councilman Doug Drummond, a retired police commander, said that the figures may be skewed because some cities have different ways of reporting how they clear cases.

Police Chief Lawrence Binkley did not return repeated telephone calls.

Despite the problems, the city has “increased the financial and staffing resources” of the department, from 21% of its budget in 1970 to 28.7% in 1980 and 33.3% for 1990-91, according to the report.

Another bit of good news is that Long Beach is now competitive with other large California cities in the number of police officers it has budgeted for 1990-91.

The city has 1.76 police officers per 1,000 residents, according to the report. Los Angeles has 2.57 officers per 1,000, Sacramento 1.77 and San Diego 1.63.

“I was stunned by some of the raw data,” Robbins said. “I’m looking at these statistics and see that we’re not nearly as understaffed as some people are led to believe.”

The Long Beach statistics include 46 sheriff’s deputies hired this fall to help city police. In the only arrangement of its kind in the state, Long Beach has contracted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to patrol parts of the city--a move that has been criticized by the police union, which fears that this signals the eventual dismantling of the Police Department.

For the last two years, residents have increasingly complained about increasing crime and slow or nonexistent response by police. City and police officials have taken several steps to improve service, such as increasing the number of detectives and hiring sheriff’s deputies.

Since the deputies began patrolling north and northeastern Long Beach, crime in those areas has decreased by 18%, according to Hankla’s report. Crime in the rest of the city has decreased by three-tenths of 1%, compared to a 10.1% increase for the same period last year.

“We continue to see the very positive benefits of the joint policing arrangement with the sheriff,” Hankla wrote. “Perhaps the largest single factor in reversing poor clearance rate is the contract with the Sheriff’s Department to police approximately one-fifth of the city.” The contract with the Sheriff’s Department includes five detectives.