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Council Lifts Freeze to Allow LAPD Hiring of 300 Officers

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to scrap a 2-year-old Los Angeles Police Department hiring freeze to put 300 new patrolmen on the streets, with priority going to former LAPD officers and reservists who want to return to the force.

Mayor Richard Riordan, who has made public safety a top priority of his Administration, praised the council’s 12-0 vote to end the freeze and give Chief Willie L. Williams authority to employ 7,900 officers--300 more than the force now has.

The new officers will be assigned “to black-and-whites, substations and foot patrols” and not to desk jobs, Williams promised the council. Money to pay for the extra officers is in the city’s budget.

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Lifting the freeze, however, will not result in a dramatic spate of new hires because the Police Academy’s capacity for training new officers is limited, LAPD officials have said before.

But one effect will be to free the LAPD from the red tape that has delayed and complicated department hiring.

Under the freeze, the LAPD has had to secure council permission to hire and promote anyone, including recruits.

The council has generally granted these exemptions. But obtaining them has often meant months of delays in hiring, and it has reduced the chief’s effectiveness in managing his department, said Councilman Marvin Braude, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

The move to lift the hiring freeze was a byproduct of a plan authored by Councilwoman Laura Chick that is intended to quickly add 50 LAPD officers.

Under this portion of the plan, the LAPD is authorized to hire 50 officers by offering jobs to former officers who voluntarily left the department, by offering full-time positions to reservists with 2,000 hours of experience and by raiding the ranks of other law enforcement agencies.

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Hiring “pre-trained” candidates will cost less and permit a faster manpower buildup, Chick said.

Tuesday, Chick told her colleagues that hiring candidates who do not need to go through the LAPD’s eight-month academy program for recruits or a lengthy probationary period will save the city $68,000 per officer.

During Tuesday’s debate, Williams also assured Councilwoman Rita Walters that hiring former officers and reservists, who are disproportionately white and male, will not disrupt the LAPD’s affirmative action plan. Such hirings can be offset by hiring fewer white males in the incoming academy classes, the department has said.

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