Wachs Seeks to Abolish Limit on L.A.’s Funding of Plaques for Slain Officers

Los Angeles Councilman Joel Wachs on Monday proposed elimination of spending restrictions on memorial plaques for police officers killed in the line of duty, saying the city was “nickel and diming” the dead officers’ families and friends into paying for them.

The law, which Wachs called “an embarrassment to the city,” provides money only to mount the officer’s badge on a plaque, which is given to the family at the officer’s funeral as a memento.

Fellow officers and family members must chip in to have the officer’s gun, medals, pins, whistles and other personal items included on the memorial.

Wachs said the city should pay to include the additional items.

“The very least the city can do is honor their memory with a suitable memorial at their funeral,” he said at a news conference in front of the memorial fountain at Parker Center, the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters. He was joined by Deputy Chief Bernard Parks and other police officials.

Wachs’ attention was drawn to the law by police officials who were outraged when they learned they had to pay to include more than a badge on a framed plaque for Christy Hamilton, a rookie officer killed while responding Feb. 22 to a domestic dispute call .

“It seemed rather ludicrous that they would ask that (families) do that,” said Officer Angela Hougen, who works in the unit that provides counseling and other services to slain officers’ families.

Hougen said that as she arranged for Hamilton’s memorial plaque and funeral, she found that many officers were so financially strapped by home damage in the Jan. 17 earthquake that they had little to donate for a plaque.

Wachs also complained that the city is charging the families of slain officers $710 to buy and render unusable an officer’s semiautomatic pistol so it can be mounted on a plaque. A similar handgun could be purchased for less than $400 new, he said.

To demonstrate their point, Wachs and Hougen displayed Hamilton’s framed badge next to a larger framed memorial to a retired traffic officer that included his whistle, handcuffs, medals, stripes, pins and uniform patches.

Wachs said his proposal, which he plans to introduce in the City Council meeting today, would lift the spending limit to cover the cost of including additional personal items, which Wachs estimated would not amount to more than about $500 for each memorial.