Officer Not Being Candid on Enforcement Issue

In his letter of April 24 in reply to my article “Blaming the Victims” (April 3), Los Angeles Police Officer Joe Losorelli is not being entirely candid. Enforcement of criminal laws by ordinary citizens is precisely what the LAPD is demanding in cases where it is unable to control prostitution and drug-dealing near legitimate businesses.

In a story reported in The Times (April 8) Losorelli is quoted as telling Van Nuys motel operators to get together and hire one--count ‘em, one--private security guard to ride around in a car and patrol a half-dozen motels. Pardon me, Officer Losorelli, but what is that guard doing for law enforcement that you and your well-trained and armed fellow officers can’t? Besides, haven’t those business people already paid for law enforcement with their taxes? Why should they have to pay again? For what?

When--as Losorelli tells us--he and his partner, with all the LAPD resources behind them, are able to arrest only 25 out of 100 drug dealers brazenly plying their illegal trade out in the open, just what is that one private security guard expected to do?

Suppressing crime and arresting criminals is a job for the police, not for shopkeepers or their lone rent-a-cop. Telling a doughnut shop owner to shut down his business during the night, as a means of law enforcement, is absurd. Doughnuts don’t cause crime. Criminals do. Let’s punish them, not their victims.

GIDEON KANNER Burbank *

*Police officer Joe Losorelli confuses the roles of building owners and business operators who are merely tenants and have no control over conditions of the premises outside the shops they occupy.

Establishments open to the public must by law keep their doors unlocked during business hours. They cannot enforce “No Trespassing” edicts or even refuse service to anyone they consider a criminal. Criminals, along with other undesirables, have equal rights now.

The police can’t have it both ways. They can’t disarm and deny citizens the right to defend themselves and their properties and, at the same time, expect them to face dangerous criminals by shaking their fingers or squirting salad seasoning ingredients at them.

The police, and only the police, can enforce public law in these very public places. If they are unable to do this, maybe it’s time we recognize, as Gideon Kanner’s op-ed piece does (“Blaming the Victims,” April 3), who the victims are, and authorize them to do what has to be done.

PAUL MORRATTO Valley Village