Police Panel OKs Proposed Redeployment

The Los Angeles Police Commission approved a request to shift 105 officer positions to new homeland security and special operations units Tuesday, setting the stage for one of the largest redeployments of sworn officers within the Police Department in recent years.

The request, which is part of Chief William J. Bratton’s effort to reorganize the Los Angeles Police Department, aims to create a new LAPD vanguard against gangs and terrorism.

But because the effort comes at a time when patrol forces throughout the department are already stretched thin, LAPD officials say they will try to build up the department’s two new bureaus gradually, taking as few officers from street patrols as possible.

Instead, they say most of the new positions will be created by scaling back the number of LAPD positions assigned to specialized units, and in command positions in some detective units, including narcotics.

The biggest hit, according to the interim budget request approved Tuesday, will be taken by the city’s metropolitan platoons -- elite crime-suppression squads. Nearly one-third of the authorized positions in these platoons have been allowed to fall vacant, and under the proposal, they will be eliminated permanently to allow for new authorized posts in the homeland security bureau at no additional cost.

While acknowledging that the request comes when LAPD resources are already strained, homeland security remains “a critical function,” argued John Miller, head of the homeland security bureau.

“It’s a function which has not been addressed within the LAPD sufficiently. That is the reason the chief has chosen to expand this.”

But City Councilman Nate Holden, whose South Los Angeles district includes some of the most crime-torn areas of the city, was skeptical. The number of LAPD officers working patrol at the end of last year was close to a five-year low, and with fewer officers available to respond to emergency calls, response times had soared citywide.

Holden said he feared that some of the new positions would eventually be taken out of patrol. “The murder rates are going up. Major crimes are going up.... Something has to give,” he said. “We have the Secret Service and the FBI and the CIA and, in addition, homeland security out of Washington working with us,” Holden said, adding that the Police Department “can’t do everything.”

If approved by Mayor James K. Hahn and the City Council, the interim budget request would allow the LAPD to create a homeland security bureau that would incorporate many existing units within the department, and create several new ones.

The bureau eventually would have 249 police officers. Among other duties, officers would be charged with conducting surveillance, investigating crimes related to terrorism and assembling detailed files on potential targets.

Already, officers under Miller’s command are assembling 549 so-called “target folders” or detailed files on particular buildings or areas of the city likely to be attacked by terrorists. The files would contain such information as floor plans and names and phone numbers of building managers so emergency workers arriving at the scene of a crisis could react quickly.

Councilman Jack Weiss said there must be safeguards against abuses. “I want to open up the question of what kind of civilian oversight we will have over this expanded intelligence function,” he said.