Valley Police on FASTRAC to Criminals

Detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire station used a new tool recently to nab two Granada Hills 18-year-olds believed to have burglarized and vandalized 20 schools in the area.

The cases were all similar. Desktop computers were overturned, windows shattered and the chemical snow of fire extinguishers sprayed across classrooms.

A computerized map program helped detectives link the cases in a matter of minutes--much less time than it would have taken to analyze individual written reports.

“It gave us the ability to analyze it and come up with a game plan in less than an hour,” said the Devonshire Division’s Capt. Vance Proctor.

The map program is part of the new FASTRAC process, modeled after a computerized crime statistic program in New York City. The LAPD version, which stands for Focus, Accountability, Strategy, Teamwork, Response and Coordination, is intended to give supervisors better technology to spot crime patterns as well make them accountable for what happens on their watch.

The Valley Bureau was the first to receive the program, in November. The department’s other three bureaus were using the system by the end of December.

Each week, the captain of one of the four bureaus meets with the department’s top brass to review crime statistics. The map program illustrates each crime with a different icon and each department shift--day, night or swing--in a different color, so it’s easy to see what crimes have occurred in a particular neighborhood during a certain time of day.

Deputy Chief Gregory Berg, who oversees the program, said the top brass are looking for anomalies, such as an unusually high number of nighttime home invasion robberies or daytime burglaries. Captains are then expected to eliminate those outbreaks.

“Captains are having to come in front of the chief and tell what they know about crime patterns,” Berg said.

“That’s the beauty of this process. Frankly, it’s long overdue in a department as large and far-flung as we are.”

When many similar crimes hit a neighborhood, it is easy to spot a pattern. The FASTRAC program links just a few crimes together, usually well before detectives would notice a trend.

“We’re recognizing patterns long before they become severe problems,” Proctor said.

At the Devonshire Division, detective supervisors use the statistics to allocate resources to hot crime spots.

In one case, officers were sent to patrol the neighborhood around a school in response to a surge in daytime residential burglaries. Though the burglars were never caught, the crimes subsided, perhaps because they were frightened off.

“It either catches them in the act or the police activity is so severe that it curtails the crimes,” said Det. Anthony Foti.

By this summer, the department is expected to add risk management to FASTRAC. Officials are in the process of drafting charts that will depict the number of lawsuits, personnel complaints, officer-involved shootings, pursuits and use-of-force issues affecting officers.

Along with the crime patterns, captains will be asked to discuss any increase in complaints and possible methods to deter them.

Also in the next few months, the LAPD expects to address community-oriented policing at every fourth meeting, at which captains will be expected to outline long-range community goals for their areas.