Platform : Should L.A. Try “Hot Spot’ Policing?

Los Angeles police say there was an automatic weapon in the hand of 14-year-old Antonio Gutierrez when an officer shot him in the back and killed him last Saturday in Lincoln Heights; other witnesses say it was a flashlight. In either case, the pervasiveness of guns on the street had much to do with Gutierrez’ death, which sparked disturbances in his neighborhood.

In New York City, a new police policy that targets high-crime blocks and calls for a stop-and-frisk for the most minor infractions is given varying amounts of credit for a plummeting violent crime rate. Now, say New York police on the beat, gang members are leaving their guns at home. JIM BLAIR asks whether police here could--or should--try the same thing. *

DENNIS FALCON

Research associate, Tomas Rivera Center (a Latino research institute), Claremont

The reduction in homicides in New York over the past year has received a lot of print. Now, as to whether any particular program can receive the kudos for having brought that about is questionable. New York City, beginning in the days of Mayor David Dinkins, had done substantial work in increasing the size of the police force in particular communities and that has had an impact. Undoubtedly, the stop and frisk policy probably has had some impact, because every time you frisk somebody, for whatever purpose, and you find an illegal firearm and remove that from the street, you’re having an impact.

The question you have to ask is, “at what cost?” You have to ask yourself how would we respond ourselves to being frisked, being searched by police for minor, trivial, probably not felonious activity.

Tactics such as those on the part of the LAPD, especially in the era of Daryl Gates, weren’t uncommon. We had Operation Hammer and other sweeps that received a lot of press. Generally the community would applaud the efforts, but when the spotlights are gone, you find that they arrested 800 people and only two people ended up actually being charged. People are going to get angry, because in the long run, after the spotlights are gone, the guns come back, the bad guys come back. And police can’t keep that kind of activity up.

Even though homicide rates might go down or up from one year to the next, the effects of crime are cumulative. People won’t notice that 3% less people were murdered, they’ll only know that we still have way too many murders. Long-term solutions that look at the base issues and the base structural causes are what we have to focus on.

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LINDA PEREZ

Volunteer with the Los Angeles Alliance for a Drug Free Community, Hollywood

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The way I see it, the kids provoke the police. They can’t get away with that all the time. They’re looking for trouble, they’re going to find it and unfortunately the guys that pay the price sometimes are innocent but most of the time they are in gangs. They’re even proud of being in gangs.

I don’t think a plan like New York City’s is an affront to people’s dignity. I think we would appreciate more police around, because crime is all over the streets, especially here in Hollywood.

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JORGE GONZALEZ

Criminal defense and civil rights attorney, co-chair of Police Watch, a referral service for victims of alleged police abuse

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The police generally have a tendency to want to deal with minority communities in a very heavy-handed manner.

The concern that we would have as a community is that we would be mistreated more often than people, say, in a white community. We see that kind of behavior here now. For instance, young Chicanos who are dressed in baggy clothes and have very close haircuts are often stopped on traffic violations and ordered out of the car, ordered to kneel on the curb--which is a very humiliating thing--and there really is nothing other than their appearance which causes the officers to do that.

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OLIVER THOMPSON

Chief of police, Inglewood

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It looks to me like [New York is] using upwards of a hundred officers or more [in these small high-crime areas] to find out what the problems are and to search suspects. If a police department had that capability, then I’m quite sure it could decrease the number of gun-related crimes, but most of us don’t have that. I don’t think Inglewood has the ability at present to flood these small numbers of blocks with a large number of officers because typically we don’t have the numbers out there.

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GARY GREENEBAUM

Rabbi, former chairman of L.A. Police Commission, Western regional director of the American Jewish Committee

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I think this model from New York has a lot of potential, but I think the way to proceed would probably be to make the community aware that it is going to be happening, because surprises put people on the defensive, and to try to create some level of local support. Now that Los Angeles has community police advisory boards, boards should probably be utilized to help the community understand the necessity. At the same time, officers need to be instructed quite clearly on what the limits are to their rights to frisk people on the street.

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SHERMAN BLOCK

Sheriff, Los Angeles County

One of the proposals that we have been looking at and which was a matter of intended legislation but never got enacted, was [a bill] to allow us to set up gun checkpoints as we do with sobriety checks.

Unfortunately our Legislature, at least some members of the Legislature, seem to be going in the other direction. There is currently legislation designed to liberalize the concealed weapon laws in this state to make it legal for any person over the age of 18 who does not have a criminal record or history of mental illness to be able to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

I could just envision five gang members--four of whom have criminal records and one who does not--and the one without the criminal record can become the designated gun-bearer.