City Officials Assail LAPD Computers

A $16-million police computer system that was funded through a highly touted venture between city officials and private contributors is plagued by glitches, is prone to crashes and operates at only 40% of its capacity, city officials said Monday.

The system for the Los Angeles Police Department was funded by the Mayor’s Alliance, a group of private contributors brought together by Mayor Richard Riordan in an effort to bring the department into the Computer Age.

So far, the system has been connected to 13 police divisions, providing 700 workstations. When it is completed in June, it is expected to connect 1,250 workstations throughout the department.

But police officials said the job of designing and installing the system was beyond the expertise of the police staff and city computer experts. They also said they underestimated the cost of the system.

“We honestly miscalculated the scope” of the work, Police Cmdr. Bill Russell told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Although the system was initially tested at the west San Fernando Valley division in Reseda, it was expanded to 12 other police divisions before the “bugs were worked out,” he said.

“We built it on the fly, and whether we should have done that is neither here nor there,” Russell said.

Russell said the system has crashed each time it was added at a division and has had problems handling large amounts of data. A report submitted to the committee said the system has also been plagued by computer viruses.

Russell said the system is working at 40% of its capacity because the city has yet to add the more complicated “customized” applications that he described only as “the bells and whistles” of the system.

Russell’s report drew the anger of the Riordan administration and participants in the Mayor’s Alliance, who said Russell overstated the problems in the system.

“It’s not a computer fiasco,” said Noelia Rodriguez, Riordan’s press deputy. While she acknowledged some problems in the system, she said glitches were expected.

“There is no question that when you are going from ground zero and introducing technology on this scale, there will be challenges,” she said.

Mary Odell, president of Riordan’s philanthropic foundation and a key organizer in the Mayor’s Alliance, attacked Russell’s characterization that the system was put together “on the fly.”

“I think he misrepresented some of the problems seriously,” she said.

Odell added that when the system was designed, it was tested by Flour Daniels Corp., an engineering company that contributed its design work on the system.

She also said that the alliance provided a $500,000 training grant to USC to train police and city officials to use the system.

Other city officials said there was always speculation that the city did not have the experts to design and install the massive system.

“I’m not surprised whatsoever,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the Public Safety Committee. Although she supports the effort, Chick said that she has been raising questions about the system for more than a year.

To solve the computer problems, she said, the city may have to raise additional funds and hire outside experts.

“We are talking about moving the LAPD and the entire city into the 21st century,” she said. “To get to where we want to go, we have to acquire some major talent and expertise.”

Russell told the committee that he plans to hold a meeting with the city’s top computer experts within two weeks to discuss possible solutions to the system’s problems and to estimate the cost of such solutions.

Despite the problems, the system has provided police with the ability to write reports on computer and file copies into a mainframe system.

The system also allows police to send electronic messages to one another and to access local, state and federal criminal databases and research state criminal and civil codes.

Funding from the Clinton administration’s highly touted crime bill will provide laptop computers so that police can write reports while on patrol.

The entire system was intended to cut the amount of time spent on time-consuming paperwork.

Because of the problems, Russell suggested that the city halt further installation of the system to five additional police divisions, including the department’s gang unit.