The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : Elite Police Unit Counters Gang Violence

With the worst of the worst wreaking havoc on San Fernando Valley streets, the Los Angeles Police Department has rolled out the best of the best to crack down on them.

More than two dozen officers from the Police Department’s elite Metro Division have been patrolling the streets of Sylmar this month in an effort to reduce the rash of gang-related violence that has befallen the northeast Valley this summer. And the results are already encouraging: The number of reported violent crimes has dropped, and arrests have gone up.

“The Foothill Division had a really dramatic increase in gang-related crimes, and when they saw that happening, they initiated a request to Metro,” said Lt. Pete Durham, who commands a platoon of 28 Metro officers who target crime problems in the jurisdictions of the department’s Valley and West bureaus. “We’re assigned there until we can bring that problem under control.”

Created in the 1950s as the department’s reserve force, over the years the Metro Division has evolved into a collection of five active specialized platoons, including the canine, mounted horse and SWAT units. The other two platoons, including Durham’s group, zero in on problems that crop up in the Valley and West bureaus and in the South and Central bureaus.

Metro officers are assisting the Foothill Division’s regularly scheduled patrol officers by saturating the Sylmar area at night. Durham said the infusion of help translates into 10 to 15 extra patrol cars filled with officers armed with information on the latest crime trends and freed from having to respond to routine calls.

“That means we can go out and try and hunt down the predators,” Durham said. “In this case, it’s gang members.”

During the first week they were in Foothill, the Metro officers made 20 felony arrests, between 40 and 50 misdemeanor arrests, and issued dozens of traffic tickets. In one incident, officers stopped a motorist they spotted drinking alcohol inside a car. The man turned out to be a suspect wanted in a recent rape case.

Durham said his officers look out for suspicious behavior, such as people hanging around automated teller machines or passing items--possibly drugs--from hand to hand. Cars with two to three passengers slowly prowling around a neighborhood may also catch an officer’s eye.

Although Metro officers mostly ride in unmarked cars, their presence is not invisible to the bad guys--which is another deliberate ploy to deter would-be criminals, police say. In the first week that the Metro platoon joined the Foothill Division, the number of reported violent crimes dropped from 54 to 40.

To join the Police Department’s elite division, candidates must undergo extensive oral and physical testing, meet tougher fitness requirements and shooting qualifications and, if accepted, receive additional training to learn how to serve risky arrest warrants and stake out banks.

Last December they were deployed to the Devonshire Division to respond to a rash of follow-home robberies in which gunmen robbed residents as they arrived home from holiday shopping sprees. In their first week, Metro officers arrested several people caught in a stolen car who later turned out to be suspects in the follow-home robberies.

Being a Metro officer requires “a different kind of skills and focus than normal patrol duties,” Durham said. “Metro is very proud of the fact that we think we get the top 10% of the officers in the city who want to come to us.”