No to Pistol-Packing Park Rangers

Arming the city’s tiny cadre of park rangers was a bad idea when the Los Angeles City Council nixed it in the late 1980s and 1998. It’s no more appealing now. The council, which may be pressed again to arm the rangers, should hold its ground.

Only about four dozen rangers now monitor the city’s 385 parks, encompassing 15,000 acres. Their duties run the gamut from conducting nature tours to citing owners of unleashed dogs and settling disputes over the use of soccer fields. The rangers are law enforcement officers largely with respect to park rules. But because city parks also suffer serious crimes, including gang activity, some rangers understandably feel that their lack of firearms leaves both themselves and law-abiding park users at risk. Presently they carry handcuffs, pepper spray and batons.

With no more than 12 rangers on patrol citywide at any one time, there’s no way they can respond quickly to reports of trouble. Arming the rangers, who are neither screened like sworn law officers nor trained to shoot, wouldn’t change that.

Instead, park directors, the ones usually on the scene, are instructed to call the police first when trouble occurs. A new draft protocol between the parks department and the Los Angeles Police Department could improve police response time.

City officials in San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose have decided that arming rangers wouldn’t improve park safety and instead might produce tragic accidents. The Los Angeles City Council reached similar conclusions twice before. More rangers would help. But not more guns.