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Police Unveil Compstat to Public

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Times Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Police Department opened its Compstat crime-tracking program to a group of South Los Angeles clergy Thursday in the first of what Chief William J. Bratton said is a series of meetings aimed at engaging community groups in his crime-fighting efforts.

Compstat tracks crime geographically, and police brass meet regularly to discuss the results. At the meetings, commanders are grilled by their superiors to ensure quick, effective responses to crime trends.

The meetings ordinarily are closed to the public, but Thursday’s session, which was organized with black church leaders, was the first to which community representatives were invited. The purpose, LAPD officials said, is to make the department’s workings more open, engage community leaders, and increase trust and communication between residents and officers.

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“There has been a history of distrust with the LAPD,” Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell told the audience. “We are looking at breaking down that distrust.”

Speaking at the meeting at West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ on Crenshaw Boulevard was its minister, Bishop Charles E. Blake, and the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers of Boston. Rivers unveiled a gang-intervention program organized by church leaders to combat violence.

Rivers, who worked with Bratton years ago in Boston, said black church leaders must confront black-on-black violence, much as they combat racial profiling and police racism.

The event drew a standing-room-only audience. But three hours later, as LAPD commanders swapped questions and delved into such LAPD fine points as how many “FI,” or field interview, reports had been racked up the previous week, the crowd had dwindled to 19.

Among those who stuck it out was 32-year-old Elliot Cox of Los Angeles, a bodyguard who attended with his pastor. Cox sat in back looking at the colored maps and charts dotted with symbols representing rapes, murders and robberies.

“I’m just startled by all the facts of what is really going on in the community that we don’t hear about,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling.”

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Cox, who is from South L.A., expressed cautious optimism. He has lost several friends to gang-related homicides, he said. “I’m a little skeptical, but this problem is so bad you jump at any solution,” he said.

Cox said that as a young black man, he often was hassled by police. His cousin, a gang member, recently was shot to death by officers from a neighboring police agency, he said.

The LAPD wants to build trust so more people will cooperate with police, Cox said, but “I’m not sure they can do that, the way things have been here.”

Bratton and church leaders heralded the meeting as the beginning of a partnership between churches and the LAPD to combat gang crime.

Compstat will be the “engine that will drive” a new offensive against crime, Bratton said, “but we can’t do it alone.... We need your eyes and ears, your ownership and partnership.”

Mayor James K. Hahn cited the recent killing of Joey Swift, 13, in Mid-City, where witnesses were reluctant to give evidence.

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“We can’t just allow it to go by the wayside and shrug our shoulders and say, ‘We can’t do something about it.’ We can do something about it,” Hahn said.

For most of the session, four police commanders from South Los Angeles gave reports on crime and answered questions about their responses. They cited assault and robbery tallies, new efforts to “debrief” arrestees and the possibility of engaging clergy to help serve warrants.

Waiting to speak was businessman Tyrone Floyd, 50. Floyd was at the meeting because he sings with the West Angeles church’s choir. Floyd, who is black, said the crime problems Bratton seeks to address are bigger than the LAPD. He discussed racial inequities in the justice system, then told of how his 2-year-old granddaughter was murdered by black intruders seven years ago.

Compstat “is all well and good for TV and everything,” he said, “but what happens when they all leave, and the lights go down?”

Councilman Nate Holden, who attended the meeting, told reporters he was unhappy that his invitation was last-minute.

“How could they have such an important meeting and not invite me?” he asked. He complained that council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry, who also represent South Los Angeles, were snubbed too.

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A press deputy for Parks said Parks was not invited. Perry said Bratton had mentioned the event to her Tuesday but it was too late for her to arrange to attend.

LAPD spokesman Lt. Horace Frank said there had been a mix-up about who was supposed to send out invitations, and so the council members received theirs late, with apologies. There was no deliberate effort to exclude them, he said.

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