The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Learning the ABCs of Police Lingo

Used to be, everybody who was anybody at the Los Angeles Police Department had an acronym. The LAPD elevated the acronym to an art form with a veritable epidemic of acronym-itis during the 1970s.

The LAPD became riddled with units and divisions with $75 names. For example, paroled criminals were tracked by STAR TREC, which stood for the System to Account for Releases ThatRequire Extra Caution.

While the urge to create short, snappy names for the things police officers do has eased with time, the acronym continues to leave its indelible mark on LAPD culture.

Even now, at the Devonshire station, cans of dog food decorate the desks of the fingerprint team, or Area Latent Print Officers, commonly known as ALPO.

“If you have an acronym, you have to have a coffee mug and a T-shirt,” said Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker, former commander of the LAPD’s Valley Division. “If you really emerge, you get a baseball cap with the acronym on it.”

Acronyms provided the perfect marriage between police work’s military and bureaucratic influences, as officers bandied about words such as interface and system to make them work.

Occasionally, such rampant creativity led to controversy.

CRASH, for example, remains a popular acronym for a gang unit once known as TRASH.

CRASH--short for the quaintly named Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums--was the LAPD’s substitute when some community leaders objected to the politically incorrect TRASH: Total Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

STORM was born out of the Hollywood Division’s desire to dispatch its cars more efficiently, and initially stood for System to Overcome Residual Mismanagement. But the name was changed to System to Optimize Radio Car Management after the earlier version ruffled feathers at central dispatch downtown.

Kroeker is an armchair student of the acronym, an admitted acro-phile.

Even before he made sergeant, Kroeker said, he aspired to create the longest, most bureaucratic-sounding acronym. He succeeded with CONSTRUCT, the Committee on a New Systematized Transfer of Records Under a Centralized Terminal.

It had to do with improving juvenile offender records, Kroeker explained. “I laughed with glee. It looked totally official,” he said.

Later, in an oral exam for promotion, Kroeker was asked to give the meaning of his own acronym. He got that one right.

“The test of a true LAPD acronym is when they ask you about it at your oral interview,” he said. Candidates for promotion can spend hours studying long lists of acronyms. Kroeker can rattle them off at an impressive clip.

Officers who have the political clout to pull duty in the office of Chief of Police Willie L. Williams enjoy the prestige of a short, sweet acronym that says it all: COP.

But those who deal with the press, work for CRO--acronym-ese for the Community Relations Office. But they pronounce it “crow,” and sometimes they wind up eating it.

PACE is not just a picante sauce. It is also the LAPD’S Police Assisted Community Enhancement unit, which helps citizens pick up trash and remove graffiti.

But the best-known acronyms are those that ooze coolness: CRASH and CAPS and BAD CATS.

CRASH, the gang unit that used to be TRASH, is found at most police stations. CAPS is the Crimes Against Persons Section, which handles everything from robbery to rape. BAD CATS is a double whammy, acronym-wise. BAD is the Burglary-Auto theft Division (although you could argue it should be BATD) and CATS is the Commercial Auto Theft Section. In case you missed that, they investigate car thefts.

“In the height of the acronym craze, “We used to have sheets of acronyms published,” Kroeker said. “I’ve always been delighted with them and I have always poked fun at them.”

Count us among the converted.

Henceforth, STREET stands for Space Totally Reserved to Entertain, Enlighten and Teach. We have yet to settle on what BEAT means, though Better Editing At The Times comes to mind.