LAPD Revises Its Riot Response Manual : Law enforcement: New measures aim at providing a quicker, more effective reaction to civil unrest.

Acknowledging that they made mistakes during the recent riots, top Los Angeles police administrators said Tuesday that they have significantly enhanced measures to control any future unrest, including plans to assemble large police squads to “quickly overwhelm and arrest” rioters.

The revisions to the LAPD’s longstanding tactical manual, revealed during an often contentious Police Commission meeting at Parker Center, included such refinements as providing detailed maps for locating and setting up division command posts, providing firetruck escorts and promptly calling in outside agencies.

“Based on what happened in April, we are now a smarter organization to deal with these kinds of situations,” said Cmdr. Bayan Lewis, who with Chief Daryl F. Gates’ blessing finalized the revisions.

“We as an organization are not a turtle, and we will not hide our head and ignore what we have learned in the last few weeks.”

The new riot-control measures are designed to avoid a recurrence of problems that befell police during the disturbances and triggered broad, national condemnation of the department’s performance. Last month, the Police Commission appointed former CIA and FBI Director William H. Webster to head a special panel to investigate the LAPD’s response to the riots.

By inference, the new directives are an acknowledgment of failures by police during the unrest that include a slow response to the riot flash point, an inability to escort firetrucks to numerous arson fires and mix-ups in outfitting officers with necessary equipment and other supplies.

Lewis, who oversees the LAPD’s Uniformed Services Group, said the new anti-riot measures will be implemented quickly because “emotions are still very high” in the community.

“People are still very concerned about what has happened over the last year, from the beating of Rodney King to the trial,” he said. “We can’t prevent future riots, but we can do something by having a stronger police presence and responding more promptly.”

Lewis said the tactical manual had not been updated for eight years. Even before the riots were over, Lewis said, he began reviewing the police response and presented a number of recommendations to Gates.

Lewis said the chief primarily wanted to make sure, should any disturbances occur, that officers respond immediately and aggressively in arresting lawbreakers and stopping the violence.

“He stressed very strongly that the street level watch commanders respond with enough people and not stand back and spend a lot of time evaluating the situation,” Lewis said of Gates. “That was his major concern.”

After the riots, Gates blamed a field lieutenant for failing to redeploy his troops and bring order to the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, where assaults and looting erupted on the evening of April 29.

Under the new directives, which are being included in the manual and being made available to the entire 8,100-member force, the primary responsibility of supervisors will be the “rapid assembly of sufficient forces to immediately confront the (riot) participants.”

“In the case of unlawful assembly,” the revisions state, “a dispersal order must be issued. If the dispersal order is ignored, or in case of riot, law violators must be quickly overwhelmed and arrested.”

Supervisors are advised to “be decisive and take command!” They are to promptly declare a tactical alert and mobilize officers into squads and platoons so they can be deployed in danger areas. In the recent riots, numerous officers waited for hours at a command post in South Los Angeles while violence swept the city.

The new directives also tell supervisors that “you must delegate. you must take the initiative. . . . Remember: Time is not on your side. You must react quickly with sufficient forces to overwhelm the rioters.”

Lewis told the commission that squads of officers will be sent into hot spots and followed by a bus carrying arresting officers and other police personnel. “We’ll arrest them and put them on the bus and then move on with another squad of officers,” he said.

On other points, officers will be given specific assignments, and maps of command points and potential danger areas--such as gun shops--will be distributed. Also, individual supervisors will have devised ready plans for moving equipment and setting up mobile communications--two areas that broke down during the department’s initial response to the riots.

In contrast to the recent riots when firetrucks were not given police escorts, as promised, the LAPD will provide “continuous protection of each Fire Department strike team,” according to the new plans.

In addition, help from outside agencies, such as the National Guard, will be sought sooner to “ensure a more efficient and expeditious response by the Guard”--which would be another improvement over the recent experience.

Another keystone of the new guidelines calls for input from throughout the department’s chain of command. After the recent riots, many officers complained about the command staff’s lack of organization.

“Officers of all levels should have input to the process because they are the best source of intelligence and will not hesitate to recommend areas which are in need of improvement,” according to the directives.

During the commission meeting, Gates also disclosed that the department’s community-based policing efforts will remain largely on hold through the end of this month, when he retires.

He noted that officers in seven divisions who had been redeployed from community-based policing assignments during the riots will remain where they are. “These continue to be unusual times,” Gates said, “and some of them would have difficulty getting back into an emergency mode” should another riot break out.

The commissioners did not immediately object to Gates’ shifting of personnel, apparently taking heed of his statement that the department might be reorganized after his departure. But the panel was disturbed about the chief’s position on how to fund a new 911 telephone emergency communications system.

Noting that police were overwhelmed by emergency calls during the riots, Commissioners Jesse A. Brewer and Ann Reiss Lane appeared to be inclined to urge the City Council and mayor to put a bond measure on the fall ballot to fund an improved 911 system. But Gates, noting that a similar bond proposal failed last year, strongly disagreed and said the public will not approve bond measures.

Rather, he said, the city should directly fund the system instead of spending taxpayer money on other items.

“I say the city should bite the bullet and pay for it,” Gates said. “Taxpayers ought to know that money has been frittered away and not used on the basic services,” such as the Police and Fire departments.