New Power Sought for Library Guards

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to sponsor state legislation giving security guards at city libraries peace officer status, which would expand their powers to arrest and transport suspects, but not give them the authority to carry weapons.

“Times have changed,” Councilman Mike Hernandez said before joining the majority in the 10-2 vote. “It’s not like it used to be in libraries when I was growing up as a kid.”

If approved by the state Legislature, the new statute would give the library system’s 39 officers access to computerized information regarding suspects, particularly those with outstanding warrants, and permit them to arrest people, even if the officers do not witness crimes in progress.

Now, the guards can only make “citizen’s arrests,” like any other person. They often must call in Los Angeles Police Department officers to handle situations.

“It’s real simple. It’s not doing anything but to try and bring them to some point in reality,” Councilman Richard Alatorre said during Tuesday’s council session, at which the issue was first discussed. Vandals and other criminals at public libraries, he added, “are a danger not just to the people that frequent the library, but they are a danger to the people we employ.”

Security guards in the city’s General Services Department earned peace officer status in the early 1980s, according to city staff reports.

But council members Nate Holden and Hal Bernson opposed the current move, fearing it would open the door to armed police in libraries and an expansion of the LAPD’s ranks to include officers who do not meet the department’s standards.

“Enough is enough,” said Holden, who also has been a vocal critic of a plan to merge the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police force into the LAPD. “We have a department that we won’t recognize in a couple of years because all of the guys in there, some of them are hoodlums. They’re worse than the guys on the outside they’re trying to arrest.”

The relatively narrow decision on library officers tapped into an ongoing policy discussion over whether the LAPD should try to absorb various law enforcement agencies operating in the city. Mayor Richard Riordan and high-ranking police officials have long advocated a philosophy of “one city, one department,” and some at City Hall want the department to quickly annex police who patrol schools, the harbor, airport and housing projects.

Lawmakers have grown increasingly skeptical, however, about the qualifications of officers in those agencies to don the LAPD badge. At least 27 MTA cops failed to meet the LAPD’s standards during background checks, which could threaten the proposed merger.

Regarding the library guards, council members also raised concerns over costs. Officials promised that the employees would not seek pay hikes based on their new status, and said there would be no added expenses for computers or training on how to use them.

Council members Laura Chick and Joel Wachs said they would support the change only because it was financially neutral.

“I’m going to hold onto this piece of paper,” Wachs said, waving the fiscal impact report.