LAPD Officers Refute ACLU Criticism : Police: Living outside patrol area does not show lack of loyalty, many say.

LAPD Officer John Francois says he doesn’t live in Los Angeles the city in which he fights crime--for two good reasons: his own safety and the high cost of housing.

But those reasons aren’t good enough for the American Civil Liberties Union, which reported in a study released last week that 83.1% of the Los Angeles Police Department’s officers live outside the city, particularly in the northern Los Angeles County suburbs of Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster.

These officers lack strong ties to the ethnically diverse neighborhoods they patrol, partly because they live in distant, predominantly white suburbs, the ACLU asserted.

But Francois, 26, a patrol officer in the northeast San Fernando Valley, is not impressed by the ACLU’s findings. He is one of about 1,000 of the LAPD’s 7,658 officers who head home to the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys when their work shifts end--and don’t apologize for it.

By living in Lancaster, Francois says he avoids potential danger, such as the death threat he received from a gang member who recognized him in his old neighborhood. The youth also threatened Francois’ mother, who lived nearby.

In addition, Francois says he could only rent an apartment in the San Fernando Valley for the mortgage payments that he makes on his three-bedroom Antelope Valley house.

Nonetheless, the ACLU report said that the high percentage of officers living in the suburbs contributes to the LAPD’s image as an “army of occupation in the urban communities” and urged the LAPD to offer incentives to officers who move into the city.

“We’re not calling for requirements that the police live in the city,” said Allan Parachini, the ACLU staff member who prepared the report. “We’re saying the situation that exists is not optimal. It’s a problem.”

By living in the neighborhoods that they patrol the officers would help stabilize these neighborhoods and reverse anti-police sentiments, he said.

Francois and other officers bristle at such conclusions. They say that where they choose to live has no bearing on how well they do their jobs. And they insist that living so far from the neighborhoods they patrol does not mean officers lack dedication to these areas.

“How can you abandon something you have to face every day?” asked Francois. “No matter where (the officers) live, there’s only one thing that matters: Where are they going back to duty every day?

“Why would I enforce the law differently if I lived within the city limits?” Francois added.

The ACLU report asserted that the long distance between LAPD officers’ homes and their workplaces may have “played a role in compromising responses to major emergency incidents.”

Several officers who live in northern Los Angeles County acknowledge that they have faced longer commutes since the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake. But they still are prepared to respond quickly when an emergency occurs in the communities they patrol.

They point out that one of the first casualties of the earthquake was LAPD Officer Clarence Wayne Dean, a Lancaster resident assigned to the San Fernando Valley Traffic Division.

Dean hopped aboard his motorcycle and headed toward the Valley minutes after the quake and well before the start of his shift. He was killed when his motorcycle plunged off a severed Antelope Valley Freeway overpass.

Shortly after the quake, LAPD Sgt. Joe Flores made his way through treacherous road conditions to get from his Lancaster home to the Foothill Station in Pacoima.

“I ended up spending several nights in my van, staying near the station,” Flores said. “There were officers who did sustain a lot of earthquake damage (at their homes), yet they remained at work.”

None of the officers dispute the ACLU’s finding that the north county suburbs, with lower housing costs and crime rates and easy freeway access to Los Angeles, are home to an usually large number of law officers.

The ACLU determined that 687 LAPD officers live in ZIP codes assigned to the Santa Clarita Valley. Two ZIP codes covering the communities of Canyon Country and Saugus together house almost 400 officers.

Farther north, another 318 LAPD officers live in the Antelope Valley, the study found. One Palmdale ZIP code was linked to 120 LAPD officers.

Although the study looked only at the LAPD, northern Los Angeles County--particularly the Santa Clarita Valley--also is home to many Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and police officers from cities such as Burbank, Glendale and Beverly Hills, officials said.

“You hear a lot of people in this community say that they don’t have to walk too far outside their door before they see the home of either a policeman, a fireman or a deputy sheriff,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Warford, who moved to the Santa Clarita Valley 30 years ago.

Three years ago, LAPD Officer Dennis Farnham learned just how popular the area is among peace officers when he opened The Cop’s Shop, a law enforcement uniform and equipment store. Recently, he said, the Canyon Country store rang up its 20,000th customer.

“It was the best thing I ever did,” said Farnham, a Santa Clarita Valley resident for 23 years.

For Francois, the absence of gunshots, whirring police helicopters and other urban noise outside his Antelope Valley home is a bonus.

“The silence was so loud when I first moved to Lancaster,” he said, “that it was a bit unnerving.”

Flores, a 40-year-old father of three, said he would rather live closer to work, but cannot afford a house in Los Angeles. “It would probably save me a couple of hours a day on the freeway,” he said. “But this is where I can find an affordable house and give my family a decent lifestyle.”

The ACLU report argued that the inability to find affordable housing is not always valid. In the report, Parachini said that houses in Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Atwater and Los Feliz are now less expensive than similar ones in the distant suburbs where many officers live.

Many officers, particularly those with children, say the low crime rates and better schools in the north county suburbs are equally as important as cheaper housing.

Gary Fullerton, an LAPD detective, moved from Sylmar to the Santa Clarita Valley in 1981 when he and his wife were planning a family. Gang violence in Sylmar was increasing, and Fullerton said he felt unwelcome there.

“I did have a problem when some of my neighbors found out I was a police officer,” he said. “My home was vandalized. It was clear to me that certain neighbors wouldn’t associate with me because they were anti-police.”

Fullerton, a Los Angeles Police Protective League board member, said that many officers move outside the city to distance themselves and their families from the people they’ve arrested. When off-duty officers visit a park or the grocery store, he said, they don’t want to run into a lawbreaker who may be carrying a grudge.

A few years ago, Fullerton, who grew up in the West Valley, also learned that patrolling the neighborhood in which you were raised is not always wise. “You go to break up a party, where there are people you know,” he said. “But you still have to do your job. You lose friends real quickly.”

Fullerton denied that LAPD officers who move to distant, mostly white suburbs are motivated by racism. According to the ACLU report, the LAPD is 57% Anglo, yet 83% of the officers live outside the city, he said.

“That means there are a lot of minority officers who have gotten out of the city too,” Fullerton said. “So, it’s not white flight. It’s police officer flight.”

Reversing this flight was one goal of the study, ACLU officials said.

One solution, the report states, is for the city to offer mortgage assistance and pay incentives to officers who choose to live in Los Angeles, particularly in high-crime areas.

The ACLU’s Parachini said that other cities, including Atlantic City and Portland, Ore., have launched such programs.

“There are models out there that were not developed by political radicals, but were developed by police departments and city officials,” he said. “To say it can’t be done, without even trying it, is to assume there are no officers or housing (owners) that would be interested in this arrangement.”

Still, many police officers remain skeptical. Some ask how the financially strapped city could pay for such programs at a time when LAPD officers have gone almost three years without a pay raise. Others say the city should not get involved in housing subsidies for some police employees.

Finally, some say that officers would have little impact on high-crime neighborhoods merely by living in them.

“The city of Los Angeles discourages us from getting involved in (law enforcement activities) off duty,” said LAPD Officer Troy Williams, who lives in Santa Clarita. “All that would do is give a false sense of security to the public.”

He added: “Being a police officer is not the most popular thing to be in some areas of the city. The last thing you’re going to do is advertise to your neighbors that you’re a police officer.”

LAPD at Home

About 1,000 of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 7,658 officers live in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, according to a recent study by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, broken down by ZIP codes, found that 83.1% of the department’s officers live outside the city of Los Angeles. The following are highlights from the study.

SANTA CLARITA VALLEY ZIP Code: Officers 91384: 57 91354: 18 91355: 126 91381: 17 91321: 86 91351: 193 91350: 190 Total: 687 *

ANTELOPE VALLEY ZIP Code: Officers 93534: 15 93535: 28 93536: 27 93551: 56 93552: 13 93591: 1 93550: 120 93553: 2 93544: 1 93543: 16 93510: 39 Total: 318