Targeting Its Shooting Policy : LAPD’s own statistics show a need for further use-of-force reform

If you subtract shooting incidents that occurred during the riots, in 1992 the Los Angeles Police Department had about an average year in the number of officer-involved shootings. But the average is still too high.

The statistics point again to the value of community-based policing. That more personalized approach--which would be helped considerably by a decline of violent street crime, of course--could make officers less dependent on firepower.

Last year, about 10 people were shot per each 1,000 officers. The Philadelphia Police Department, formerly headed by current LAPD Chief Willie L. Williams, averaged about seven such shootings per 1,000. In New York, hardly an island of serene nonviolence, the figure was three for every 1,000 officers.

Why the difference between Los Angeles and New York?

The Los Angeles Police Department, before the arrival of Chief Williams, had a nationwide reputation for aggressiveness, in part due to the ridiculously low ratio of police officers to residents--the lowest big-city ratio in the nation.

But the difference also could be attributed to the styles of the departments, says James Fyfe, a respected professor of criminal justice at Temple University.

” . . . Look at the elite units in the two departments,” Fyfe says. “In New York City the elite unit is the hostage negotiating team, while in Los Angeles it’s the SWAT team. Different approaches to the same kind of problem. One defines success in terms of waiting it out--an absence of bloodshed. The other says, ‘Let’s get it over with.’ ”

That’s an observation not lost on Williams and the Los Angeles Police Commission.

The chief has made it clear that although he will not hamstring his officers, he also will not tolerate inappropriate use of force. Williams recently found last July’s police shooting of a tow truck driver to be unjustified. The officer involved faces an internal hearing on the matter. The department also is investigating another controversial shooting, of an 18-year-old who was swinging a broomstick.

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department managed a 22% drop last year in the number of people hurt or killed in shootings by deputies. Some say the decrease was caused by increased public scrutiny of the department; Sheriff Sherman Block credits the use of non-lethal alternatives to guns. Whatever the reason, such a dramatic drop in shootings is worthy of note --including by the LAPD.