Copter Cops

The thunder of helicopter engines and spinning rotor blades punctuates the city’s nighttime soundtrack, a feature of Los Angeles as familiar as palm trees and freeways.

In most places, police helicopters are called only in emergencies. But in a city where distance and traffic can cause deadly delays on the ground, choppers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Air Support Division are constantly on patrol.

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“Surrender now or the dogs will be used,” booms the loudspeaker from an LAPD chopper on a recent night. “You have one minute.”

Below, officers are searching for a 17-year-old who slipped out of handcuffs after being arrested on suspicion of assault.

“I bet that got his attention,” Tactical Flight Officer Debbi Kickbush says to Pilot Lou Peake. The aircraft are equipped with a 400-watt public address system.

Over the next two hours, Kickbush and Peake use the chopper’s 30-million-candlepower spotlight to illuminate the South-Central neighborhood as they fly the craft in tight circles.

Kickbush, watching the telltale flashlights of the officers below, coordinates their search. “We try to make sure that they know where they are in relation to others, so there are no surprises,” she says.

Below, officers move from backyard to backyard, house to house, looking for the suspect.

Two hours later, the scene still illuminated by the chopper’s spotlight, the teenager is arrested. The spotlight, officers say, makes it tough to run.

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The LAPD began using its first helicopter in 1957 to help monitor traffic on the city’s burgeoning freeway system. In 1969, two more choppers were purchased--one assigned to the west San Fernando Valley, the other to patrol the southern half of the city. At the same time, a study was launched that led to the formation of the Air Support Division in 1974.

Now, 59 flight officers are assigned to fly 16 LAPD helicopters. During the day, two police helicopters are on patrol in Los Angeles, one in the downtown area and one in the Valley. At night, there are two downtown and one in the Valley.

In an average year, the Air Support Division handles 38,000 calls, helping to recover nearly 3,000 stolen vehicles and assisting in about 8,000 felony arrests.

Recently, the Air Support Division bought three new Bell 407 helicopters, replacing three of the fleet’s oldest aircraft.

The high-tech helicopters each cost about $1.6 million. They are equipped with heat-seeking video cameras so sensitive they can detect the warmth of a leather purse snatched by a robber and tossed into shrubbery.

They also have an electronic map that shows the crew members their location at any given moment. “Down there, I can get lost in my car,” Peake said. “Up here, no way. I know right where I am.”

Peake, a 25-year veteran of the Air Support Division, is a fountain of pilot lore. His favorite anecdote concerns two Valley car thieves who got turned around while being chased and ended up running toward each other as they hopped backyard fences.

From 400 feet up, Peake could see it coming: the two men racing toward one another, meeting at the last fence and knocking heads, each falling over backward, out cold.

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From the air, the city at night is a glowing grid, with lines of brake lights resembling lava flows that run alongside the white stream of headlights.

The chopper banks left and speeds toward a Burger King and an armed robbery call. The computer icon showing the helicopter’s position speeds across the electronic map as the chopper races across the city at 160 mph.

Within seconds, the chopper is hovering over the 12th Street restaurant, its spotlight sweeping the street. The call turns out to be a false alarm. Two minutes later, the first patrol cars arrive.

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LAPD chopper crews have used their height advantage to bust, for example, backyard marijuana patches and neighborhood “chop shops,” the low-tech factories where car thieves disassemble their booty. In one case, helicopter crews saw a robbery from 400 feet up, and followed the robber until patrol officers arrived by car.

Some recent high-profile assignments included maintaining a “no-fly zone” over O.J. Simpson’s Brentwood home when jurors were given a tour during Simpson’s 1996 murder trial.

Last year, the helicopters also gave officers a bird’s-eye perspective during the shootout that followed the robbery of the Bank of America branch in North Hollywood.

“The mission’s the same, only the vehicle is changed,” said Capt. John Trundle, commander of the Air Support Division. “My belief is that if you go to any station and talk to any patrol officer, they’d tell you they just can’t do business without us.”

The Air Support Division is based at the C. Erwin Piper Technical Facility, east of downtown. Officers crack jokes almost constantly at roll call, dressed in gray flight suits and leaning back in first-class airline chairs that were donated to the detail.

Outside, on the helipad, the officers are all business during preflight checks. In the air, it’s a bit of both.

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On this, a slow night, Peake and Kickbush zigzag over central Los Angeles, responding to a car theft, a mugging, a domestic abuse call and a pit bull attack. Between calls, they comb streets south of downtown, looking for discarded cars and big-rig trucks. The department’s new Fastrac computer program has identified the area as a popular dumping ground for stolen vehicles, with Jeeps among the most common.

“There’s one,” Peake says, banking the Bell to the left.

“Where? Where?” Kickbush asks, spotlighting the streets below.

“Over there,” Peake says. “How can you miss it? It’s huge.”

Kickbush kills the beam in disgust.

There, larger than life, is a Jeep Wrangler so real it appears to drive right off its billboard.