Suddenly, a Huge Police Presence

Police officers from around the world lined up Saturday at the Los Angeles Convention Center to test the latest night-vision goggles or try out a groundbreaking wireless weapons simulator.

Derek Poarch, director of public safety at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was among those wowed by the latest technology on display at the 111th annual conference of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police.

But the first item on his wish list doesn’t use microchips: It’s a bulletproof vest for his department’s new bomb-sniffing dog, Atos.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca welcomed the more than 15,000 law enforcement officers attending the conference.

“Ironically, thanks to the IACP, for the next five days, Los Angeles city and county will finally have enough police,” said Bratton, as he joked with reporters that the influx of law enforcement gives him the thousands of extra officers he had hoped to hire with a sales tax measure defeated Nov. 2. He then thanked Joseph M. Polisar, association president and police chief in Garden Grove, “for bringing the reinforcements in.”

Over the next few days, police officers will attend panels on crime-fighting forensics, stopping terrorism and funding issues. They will test products displayed by more than 650 vendors hawking such products as high-powered weapons and sophisticated computer networks that create virtual command centers. U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, FBI Chief Robert S. Mueller III and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge will speak.

As members arrived for the opening ceremony, they were confronted by 500 off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, county firefighters and lifeguards holding signs and chanting their demands for a new labor contract. Theirs expired two years ago.

A plane overhead trailed a banner that read: “L.A. County’s 1st Responders are L.A. County’s Last Priority.”

Inside the exhibit hall, Waynesboro, Va., Police Cpl. J.M. Shorts’ patrol car was the envy of many officers. Dubbed the “ultimate high-tech police car” by the association, it is equipped with a digital video camera, radar guns and a touch-screen computer that Bill Maki, the city’s deputy chief, described as “a beefed-up chat room” that can be shared among patrol officers in neighboring agencies.

The camera goes on at the same time the siren and flashing lights are turned on. It protects officers falsely accused of roughing up suspects and can provide “slam-dunk” evidence in court, Shorts said.

For departments that can’t afford all the gadgets, Matthew Vickers has an alternative.

His company, Innovative Safety Solutions, makes life-size sculptures of police officers armed with radar devices to scare drivers into slowing down. “They think they are going to get nailed by radar,” Vicker’s father, Phil, said. “We combine art and public safety.”

The vinyl and urethane foam mannequins sell for $1,995.