LOS ANGELES : Riot Overtime Pay for Police Wins Approval

The City Council on Tuesday approved a motion to pay Los Angeles police officers who worked overtime during the riots in cash and reimburse city coffers later.

The council voted unanimously to give officers who worked extra hours during the civil unrest more than $5 million in owed overtime pay before Federal Emergency Management Agency funds arrive. “We were expecting the FEMA money to come sooner than it has,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who introduced the motion. “But it hasn’t, so we decided to go ahead and do the fair thing.”

Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said the officers deserve to be paid quickly, “especially since all of the other law enforcement agencies have already paid their personnel for the overtime.”