Officers Oppose Closure of 2 Jails

The union that represents Los Angeles police officers Wednesday announced its opposition to the LAPD’s plan to close jails in the West Valley and Southeast divisions.

The Police Protective League said time used to transport arrestees to other divisions would keep officers off patrol and create dangerously crowded conditions at other jails.

The LAPD announced in January that it planned to close the jails because of a chronic shortage of civilian jail guards--part of a larger recruitment problem plaguing the department.

The union said Wednesday that closing Southeast--which patrols some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods--would create severe crowding problems at the nearby 77th Street jail. In addition, closing the jail in the vast west San Fernando Valley would cause time-consuming rides to the Van Nuys or Devonshire division jails, union Vice President Bob Baker said in a letter to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the department.

“Closing the [West Valley] jail and having officers transport arrestees to Van Nuys jail is like asking Oakland police officers to drive to San Francisco to book arrestees,” Baker wrote.

LAPD spokesman Lt. Horace Frank called the union’s statement “ridiculous.” He said officers routinely transport suspects from division to division for various reasons.

The Police Commission has approved an LAPD budget that includes the jail closures, but the department has yet to decide when the closures will take place.

“It seems the only option that we can come up with for the staffing problem,” said William Moran, civilian commander of the LAPD’s Fiscal and Support Bureau that oversees the jails.

The West Valley Division’s commander, Capt. James Cansler, said he supports the LAPD decision to close the jails.

“Because of the low number of detention officers, every time they take one away to work downtown, I have to take a patrol officer off the street and use him in the jail,” Cansler said. He said that happened 20 times during the morning watch in July.

Police Commission spokeswoman Tamryn Catania said the closures make sense economically “and it does not jeopardize public safety at all.”

The union representing civilian guards had earlier established its opposition to the jails’ closure.

The jails, which can handle 40 to 50 inmates each, are used to hold suspects for up to 72 hours before their arraignments or transfers to the Los Angeles County jail system downtown. The LAPD wants to reassign about two dozen civilian staffers to other LAPD jails.

The police union suggested making overtime pay available to civilian guards, and to sworn police officers who sometimes cover the jail, until staffing levels improve.