Riordan Orders Report on Plunge in LAPD Arrests

Responding to plummeting arrests by the Los Angeles Police Department over the past five years, a distressed Mayor Richard Riordan asked the city’s Police Commission on Thursday to study the issue and report the results to him.

Commission President Deirdre Hill said she will honor the request.

“It was vexing and surprising to learn that the LAPD is now making 100,000 fewer arrests, issuing over 200,000 fewer citations and conducting over 20,000 fewer field interviews per year,” Riordan wrote in a letter prompted by articles in this week’s editions of The Times. “And at a time when investigators’ caseloads have been reduced, it seems that fewer and fewer cases are being cleared by the department.”

Riordan said he was “greatly perplexed” by the decrease in arrests reported by The Times.

“If accurate, these statistics are bewildering, especially given the LAPD’s unprecedented level of support during the period covered, including a record budget this fiscal year,” Riordan wrote. “Today we have the largest force of sworn officers . . . in the history of the department.”

By contrast, Riordan noted that “other urban centers” have seen arrests increase, a veiled reference to New York City, where an assertive campaign against crime has pumped up arrests at the same time that reports of violent crime have fallen to their lowest levels in a generation.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams did not immediately respond to Riordan’s letter, but a spokesman for the Police Department said the chief had discussed it with Hill and will work with her on a response.

In addition, the department spokesman said Williams took issue with the allusion to New York, made by Riordan and The Times’ article. Despite a rising number of arrests in that city--and a falling number in Los Angeles--officers in New York still arrest far fewer suspects than their counterparts in Los Angeles, Williams noted.

The sharply worded letter, which concluded by asking the commission to convene formal hearings if necessary and to report the results within 60 days, reflected the dismay expressed by many city officials upon learning that LAPD arrests have dropped precipitously since fiscal year 1990-91.

At the Police Department, top officials have been deluged with questions since the statistics were published. In response, many officers and top officials have said the numbers confirmed what they have long sensed, that the LAPD has lost much of the vigor that once characterized the organization.

But a Police Department spokesman, Cmdr. Tim McBride, said at least part of the decline could be attributed to changing policing styles by the department, which once relied heavily on arrest statistics, but which has moved toward a more community-based method of policing. Under that philosophy, officers are instructed to emphasize problem solving over raw arrest statistics.

Although Williams has declined to respond publicly to the newly disclosed statistics, he has told members of his command staff that statistical analysis of the arrest figures is not the proper way to evaluate the Police Department’s success.

Many police officers say arrests are down because street officers are increasingly wary of wading into situations that could generate lawsuits, complaints and criminal prosecutions--issues highlighted by the March 3, 1991, beating of Rodney G. King and its long aftermath.