Little-Known Task Force Packs Powerful Punch

When LAPD officials went looking for another agency to handle the politically touchy probe of City Councilman Mike Hernandez, they settled on a police task force familiar with pressure.

Since a cadre of city police chiefs formed the LA IMPACT task force in 1991, they have assigned it a wide array of sensitive cases too extensive or too complex for smaller police forces to handle.

Its investigators have tracked violent parole jumpers, located the suspects in the murders of three police officers, protected gun stores from gangsters and cracked down on cellular phone fraud.

But the group’s focus is rooting out the region’s major narcotics traffickers. In the past six years, the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force has seized more than 59,900 pounds of cocaine with a street value of more than $2.7 billion, as well as tons of heroin and marijuana. Investigators have confiscated numerous assets from suspects, including $55 million in currency, 17 homes and a Lear jet.

“The quality of the work has proven itself time and time again,” said Hawthorne Police Chief Stephen R. Port, one of the group’s founders. “They’re very, very good.”

Based in Commerce, the 68-member task force has an annual budget of $9 million, drawn primarily from federal grants and the proceeds of seized assets. It consists of officers from 40 city police departments, the FBI, state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and other authorities.

Although it has grabbed relatively few headlines, assignment to the unit is viewed as a particularly desirable job among narcotics investigators at some of the county’s smaller police departments. In the wake of the 1995 shooting of an off-duty Glendora police officer who worked in the unit, officials said assignment to LA IMPACT was one of the most sought-after but dangerous posts in the department.

By recruiting detectives from small city departments, task force leaders said, LA IMPACT has become a clearinghouse for intelligence on crime throughout the county, and bills itself as a “one-stop shop” for expertise and resources that small cities lack.

“When they call, they’re calling for a reason. They need help,” said Jim Christian, special agent in charge of the task force. “When they have a problem that calls for a concerted effort . . . we’re there.”