Trial Run OKd for ATMs at Two Police Stations

Responding to growing fears about the use of automated teller machines at night, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to install ATMs at police stations in Northridge and the Wilshire area.

The plan, proposed by Councilman Hal Bernson, calls for ATMs at the Devonshire and Wilshire police stations on a trial basis, with the possibility of the machines eventually being installed at all 18 police bureaus citywide.

The goal is to provide banking customers with a secure site to complete transactions while giving police an opportunity to have positive contact with the public.

The two ATMs approved Tuesday could be installed in lobbies and are expected to be in operation by early next year.

The council selected the Los Angeles Police Credit Union to install and maintain the machines.

The credit union currently operates ATMs at the Los Angeles Police Credit Union at Parker Center in Downtown Los Angeles and at the San Fernando Valley headquarters in Van Nuys. But those machines were installed for the convenience of credit union members and are located in restricted areas. Citizens must get clearance to use the machines.

The city solicited bids from a number of banks and financial institutions, but they showed little interest in the venture. Several banks told city officials that they didn’t think the ATMs would be used often enough to cover the costs of installation and maintenance. The banks said each ATM must be used at least 100 times a day to break even.

Kimberly Phillips, a spokeswoman for the credit union, said the plan enables the union to not only serve its customers in the Police Department but also to pick up extra business from the public.

The credit union has agreed to pay the city $1,300 per year for each machine it operates.

The plan for ATMs at police station lobbies was conceived by Van Nuys Judge Michael S. Luros, who made the suggestion in letters to Bernson and police officials after a rash of stabbings and shootings at automated teller machines.

Luros said the idea was inspired in part by the stabbing death of Sherri Foreman, 29, a pregnant woman who died March 31 after she was attacked by a would-be carjacker near an ATM in Sherman Oaks. Her 13-week-old fetus did not survive.

Bank officials have said the number of crimes committed remains minuscule relative to the machines’ use.