LAPD ‘Rapid Response’ Force Is Reshuffled : Police: Chief Williams sends officers back to the Westside and San Fernando Valley. There had been discord in the department and resentment in the inner city.

Responding to internal and external pressures, the Los Angeles Police Department has scrapped a controversial redeployment of more than 40 officers from Westside and San Fernando Valley areas who were assigned to a “rapid response” task force to patrol gang-plagued inner-city neighborhoods.

The month-old task force--branded insensitive by some inner-city residents nurturing a fragile gang truce--was ordered curtailed by new Police Chief Willie L. Williams and represents one of his first decisions dealing with riot-scarred communities.

Williams’ action enabled officers to return to normal duties on Thursday, LAPD officials said.

When conceived, the temporary reassignments were expected to last through the summer as a deterrent to flare-ups of violence in the aftermath of the riots, according to an internal police memo detailing the unusual plan. By creating a highly visible law enforcement presence, police theorized, they could reduce the risk of violence against officers while responding quickly to unruly crowd situations.

But the reshuffling fostered discord within the department by removing police manpower from understaffed bureaus. At the same time, it stirred resentment in some inner-city communities where a truce between the Crips and Bloods has been credited with a sharp reduction in gang-related homicides.

The Rev. Carl Washington of St. Mark Church on Thursday called the deployment of additional officers in South Los Angeles “a slap in our face. It was just intimidation.”

Washington--who said he has met regularly with LAPD Deputy Chief Matthew V. Hunt of the South Bureau to discuss ways of maintaining the gang truce--said he learned of the plan after he found in his mailbox a copy of the memo detailing it. He said the tone of the memo implied that officers would become part of “an aggressive task force to let these (troublemakers) know: ‘We run this city.’

“If you read between the lines,” Washington said, “it talks about that type of atmosphere. It (would have caused) a great problem as far as the young men and the officers communicating with each other.” He said he was glad to see the department abandon the approach.

Hunt could not be reached for comment.

Deputy Chief Ronald A. Frankle, who ordered the temporary reassignments at a time when former Chief Daryl F. Gates was relinquishing his day-to-day command of the department, defended the approach as something that seemed necessary at the time, given the volatile climate in the inner city.

“When you’re dealing with a post-riot (situation) . . . you can have an incident at a school, at a big party--you can have any number of incidents that can give you a small flare-up,” Frankle said Thursday. “The whole idea of a rapid response force is, with a platoon of people, you can put something out right away, in a quarter of an hour or half an hour.”

When asked about criticisms of the plan, Frankle said he was unaware of community resentment and added that the approach was being shelved because the situation in riot-torn communities has stabilized and the deployment of additional officers is unnecessary.

“I’m not getting any (complaint) calls from the business community or residential community or the City Council or anything like that,” Frankle said. The biggest concerns, he added, were expressed by the commanders of the West and Valley bureaus, who lost vital staffing in the reshuffling.

“No commanding officer in his right mind is happy about losing people for any protracted period of time,” Frankle said. “You need psychiatric help if you’re happy about that.”

Deputy Chief Glenn A. Levant, who commands the West Bureau, said he and four other deputy chiefs--including Frankle--met July 2 with the newly sworn-in Williams and complained about the redeployment.

All five deputy chiefs said they wanted the reassigned officers returned to their bureaus, Levant said. The loans had cost the West Bureau 22 officers and two sergeants, resulting in 11 fewer patrol cars and forcing the curtailment of some community-based policing efforts, Levant said.

“We were already understaffed,” he said. “Now, we’re returning to our current level of being understaffed.”

Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker, who oversees the Valley Bureau, expressed relief to have 20 veteran patrol officers and a sergeant returning to duties.

“We’re delighted,” he said. “It is relieving pressure, both internally and externally. We’ve got a community out there that is . . . real concerned about the level of policing in the Valley. And on the inside (of the department), every commanding officer is watching his resources very keenly.

“What this does is release the pressure valve a little bit,” Kroeker said. “But . . . it’s just a (fraction) of what we ought to have.”

Cmdr. Bob Gil, an LAPD spokesman, said the decision to move officers from outlying bureaus to the inner city was reached only after an attempt to put detectives on patrol as part of the task force came under fire from the Police Protective League, the union representing the department’s 7,900 sworn personnel.

Gil said curtailment of the plan would leave a rapid response task force in place--but one made up entirely of Metro Division officers, who exist to take part in specialized police operations. LAPD officials declined to disclose the size of that force, although Gil said the goal is to do away with the task force “so we can return to normal.”

“We’re just de-escalating,” Gil said. “We’re not going to stay in a riot mode forever.”

Times staff writer Michael Connelly contributed to this story.