Police Patrols of Thompson’s Home Cause Stir

The Los Angeles Unified School District Police force, which administrators say is too short of officers to protect schools from widespread burglaries and vandalism, has assigned patrol units for the past three years to keep watch over the Bel-Air home of school Supt. Sid Thompson.

Thompson told school board members Wednesday that the practice was appropriate because of “hate mail and threats against my person and family.”

School police watch commanders were directed to have a marked patrol car make a drive-by check on Thompson’s house twice a night, according to an April 1993 memo obtained by The Times.

The memo was written by Larry Hutchens, the assistant chief of the school district police. It ordered watch commanders to maintain a confidential weekly log of the patrols for Hutchens and submit a written report to him if the duty could not be performed due to the unavailability of patrol units.

“There was some concern for the safety of the superintendent,” Hutchens said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

“He’s a very highly visible public figure. When there’s units available, we ask them to swing by. I think there’s always some concern over his safety.”

Hutchens declined to elaborate on what triggered the security concerns or how often they are actually carried out. He also said similar checks “may at times be performed” on the homes of school board members, but he could not recall specific details.

Thompson, whose home bears a sign that says it is patrolled by the private Bel-Air Patrol, did not return repeated phone calls seeking his comment on the matter. But in a memo to school board members Wednesday, Thompson said he was informed by Hutchens that it is common practice for high-visibility officials to receive special protections.

“As you may know, from time to time, I am the subject of hate mail and threats against my person and family,” Thompson stated in the memo. “It does not, therefore, seem inappropriate for school police to be performing this service while on patrol in the area.”

The Times received a copy of the memo ordering protection for Thompson’s house after publishing a report June 13 that more than $16 million has been lost to burglars and vandals in less than three years as a result of about 3,000 break-ins at school buildings each year.

School administrators said that there are simply too few school police to effectively patrol the district’s sprawling turf, which covers 710 square miles.

Only two patrol cars, for example, guard the San Fernando Valley’s 340 schools on weekends, when many of the break-ins occur. As a result, burglars and vandals are plundering the district, often targeting expensive computer equipment, and the district lacks insurance to recoup the losses.

Word of the patrols to Thompson’s home brought a strong denunciation from Helen Bernstein, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, who called for Thompson to immediately end them and to repay the cost to the district.

“This is absolutely disgraceful. They do these awful things and then people want to break up the district because of poor management,” Bernstein said. “What a message it sends.”

But in his memo to board members, Thompson said that the cost of patrols to his home is insignificant when compared to the bills run up by previous school superintendents, who had full-time officers assigned to them for security and as drivers.

LAUSD school superintendents were provided bodyguards following the 1973 slaying of Oakland schools chief Marcus Foster. But controversy over the policy cropped up in 1989 after it was revealed that then-Supt. Leonard Britton’s bodyguard-driver had earned tens of thousands of dollars in overtime in a single year.

When William R. Anton took over as superintendent in July 1990, his first official act was to ask the school board to reassign his bodyguard in an effort to defuse criticism--particularly from the teachers union--that the district pampered its top administrators while the schools suffered.

Bernstein said she believes the patrols of Thompson’s house and the past controversy surrounding Britton’s bodyguard bear similarities.

“They’re one and the same,” Bernstein said. “It’s a misuse of public funds.”

School Board President Mark Slavkin, who said he has never requested school police patrols of his own home, called for a review of the practice to determine whether Thompson needs the added security.

“It does not strike me off the top of my head that [patrols are] grossly inappropriate or that it is an abuse of Thompson’s authority,” said Slavkin. He said he recalled no specific threats against a superintendent since the late 1980s.

Periodic patrols are not uncommon for school principals who receive death threats from disgruntled employees after disciplining or firing them, Slavkin noted. By the same token, board members may get increased security, for example, during labor contract negotiations, and those risks are multiplied with high-profile officials such as Thompson, he said.

As for whether scarce district resources are better spent watching Thompson’s Bel-Air house or protecting school computers from burglars, Slavkin said, “It’s an issue of degrees of reasonableness and balancing needs.”

School board member David Tokofsky, who also has never requested school police to patrol his house, said he believes such patrols are justifiable only if there has been a clear recent threat. Tokofsky said he twice received death threats from students when he was a teacher, but received no special security in the following weeks.

School board member George Kiriyama said that his Gardena house is not patrolled but added, “I haven’t been threatened, either.” Kiriyama said he preferred to suspend judgment until he knew the reasons for the patrols.

Richard Keith, general manager of the Los Angeles School District Police Officer’s Assn., which represents about 270 school police employees, criticized the VIP home patrols as a skewed priority. “Here we don’t have enough school police officers to do our jobs, but we get assigned to go past the superintendent’s and board members’ homes,” Keith said.

Keith said his union, which has been without a contract for nearly a year, is currently involved in bitter negotiations with the district. At issue are the association’s requests for more officers, better pay and equipment, and relaxed restrictions on overtime pay, Keith said.

Another point of contention, Keith said, is a desire by the district to force officers to take vacations when schools are out, such as during spring, Christmas and summer breaks. School police contend that many break-ins occur during vacation periods when campuses are vacant for long periods of time.

“They want to put people off on forced vacations during those times due to lack of work,” Keith said. “But we have said there is no slow time.”

Tamaki is a Times staff writer and Folmar is a correspondent.