It’s Time to Give Our Cops a Raise

Do you realize that Los Angeles cops have dropped to eighth in pay among California big-city police officers, even though they’re patrolling the state’s most dangerous city?

Or that rookie Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies receive substantially more than rookie L.A. cops, although both take the same risks?

Yet when our city cops asked for a 9% pay and benefit raise over two years, the politicians have left their request lying unanswered on the city negotiating table the past 21 months.

The unfairness of this struck me last Wednesday night when I visited the Central area police station in the heart of Skid Row.

I was gathering material for a future column on how Central Division cops have developed a program to straighten out gang members. It’s a powerful program, requiring each participating cop to have the toughness of a Marine, the wisdom of a judge and the insight of a psychologist.

Afterward, as I walked to my car, I saw young men and women Explorer Scouts drilling in the street outside the station, their sharp maneuvers supervised by cops and volunteers. Across the street were two flophouses. A few yards away was 5th Street, the infamous “Nickel,” the worst street on Skid Row, and certainly one of the most dangerous in all of L.A. It was as if these cops were managing to raise flowers in a toxic dump.

Although these activities might be derided by any police officer who still thinks he’s “Dirty Harry,” they show the department trying to confront the city’s social ills, while sending out its officers each day and night against heavily armed, increasingly violent criminals. The number of dead and wounded police officers is evidence of the risk.

As the police union, the Police Protective League, has insisted for almost two years, work this complicated and dangerous deserves regular raises.

It’s a shame the cops have had to wait for them.

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This message should be an easy sell in a city where, according to the polls, crime is a top concern. But the league, which represents the police in negotiations, has never been good at public relations.

Rather, the league wields behind-the-scenes power in City Hall, through campaign contributions and its ability to mobilize police officers and their families for door-to-door campaigning.

The league’s PR shortcomings were evident at a press conference Tuesday when officers unveiled a billboard for their pay campaign.

It looked like an ad for the movie King Kong, with a large, pistol-carrying figure, resembling a man dressed in a gorilla suit, attacking a blonde woman. The sign warned: “This Can Be You Without The Police Dept.”

The press conference also displayed a certain Neanderthal quality that has always characterized the white male-led league.

President Danny Staggs accused Mayor Riordan of trying to eliminate the rank of Detective I, the beginning detective rank, as part of a plan to put more uniformed officers on the street. Staggs said the Riordan plan would hurt women.

Women, he said, prefer a career in the plainclothes ranks because they wear their civilian wardrobe to work. “Women like to wear the clothes they want to wear,” he said. In other words, girls just love to dress up.

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OK. Maybe Staggs isn’t a sensitive ‘90s kind of guy. Maybe the Police Protective League conducts its campaigns with the subtlety of a SWAT team.

But what the league is advocating is doable.

After the press conference, I talked to Detective Cliff Ruff, a league board member. He noted that Riordan has promised a raise to both police officers and firefighters. Sources told Times reporters Marc Lacey and James Rainey it would amount to 6% over two years. But Riordan did not say how the financially troubled city would finance it.

Detective Ruff said he had a strong clue. He and other league officers have learned that Riordan favors a massive reorganization and consolidation of local police agencies. In fact, the league’s communications director, Geoffrey Garfield, said he helped write the plan when he was a Riordan aide.

Police forces from the harbor, the airport and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would be eliminated and their personnel split between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department.

This would permit the two enlarged departments to obtain revenues from the harbor and the airport. They could also seek federal harbor, airport and transportation funds. It would be a new revenue source for local law enforcement.

It would require approval of a multitude of agencies. But it makes sense. Let’s quit fooling around and give our cops a raise.