Compton Shifts Funds to Sheriff

Compton City Council members voted Tuesday to reallocate $225,000 in grant money to step up law enforcement in a city that in 2005 suffered its most violent year in a decade.

The additional money for Los Angeles County sheriff’s services comes on the heels of Sheriff Lee Baca’s announcement this week that he is increasing the number of gang investigators, gang suppression officers, homicide detectives and narcotics specialists assigned to the Compton station. The council’s grant reallocation is enough to pay for two additional deputies, but the precise use has yet to be determined.

The moves by city officials and the sheriff, who has patrolled Compton since 2000 when the city disbanded its police force, came after a sharp increase last year in killings in the city.

By late July, Compton had seen more homicides in 2005 -- 43 -- than the entire previous year. By year’s end, more than 80 people had been killed either in the city or within a few blocks of the city boundary in unincorporated areas also patrolled by the sheriff. Relatively few arrests have been made in the cases.

“We just want the killings to stop. We want the killers to be caught and incarcerated,” Mayor Eric J. Perrodin told those attending Tuesday’s council meeting. “It’s good that the sheriff is bringing resources but they have to convict some people.”

Sheriff’s officials said that nine gang investigators were being moved this week to Compton from other areas of the county, bringing the team there to 18. In coming weeks, Baca plans to base an additional five-member narcotics team and a dozen homicide investigators in Compton, a significant addition to existing resources.

Earlier in the year, Baca said he was largely bound by the city’s contract, which now pays for 78 officers at a cost of about $14 million a year. The shift in resources was made now, said Chief Ronnie M. Williams, who heads the region that includes Compton, because “the sheriff wants this done.”

Perrodin praised the move, but said he wished it had been made sooner.

“Sheriff Baca is really doing something for the city of Compton,” he said, noting that by moving resources to Compton, the sheriff risked alienating supervisors who represented other parts of the county.

Baca, in fact, has faced criticism in the past by county officials for providing more service to some contract cities than they have purchased, to the detriment of other county areas.

At the same time, sheriff’s officials have said significantly more resources are needed from the city -- something city officials said they have made clear is beyond their means. Compton is trying to get special legislation passed to allow some of the revenues generated in redevelopment zones, which are currently restricted, to be put toward law enforcement.

Perrodin on Tuesday called public safety the first priority of city officials and said he wanted to assure residents that they were using all available funds to increase patrols and gang enforcement.

“Please know this,” he said, “if we have $1 in our pocket to put toward solving some of these killings and stopping homicides were going to use it.”

Perrodin, who said he has made it a point not to respond to press inquiries because he believed they only fueled negative news about his hometown, spoke at length about how he felt about crime in Compton, the performance and cost of the sheriff’s deputies, and damage to the city’s reputation by reports of the increase in homicides.

The mayor, a former Compton police officer, was a chief opponent of a push by his predecessor, Omar Bradley, to transfer law enforcement to the sheriff.

“If I could bring back our own police force today I’d do it,” he said. “We don’t have the money. So let’s move on.”

One speaker asked what people could do to help.

“I don’t normally say this at a council meeting but the first thing you can do is pray for us. Please pray for the city of Compton,” Perrodin said.

Citizens, he said, must work with the sheriff to solve crimes.

“They’re going to have to get involved. They’re going to have to tell who these killers are,” said Perrodin, who is a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. “I understand that you might not want to testify but you have to tell the sheriff what you know so we can put some of these killers in prison.”

The violence last year hit close to home for elected officials.

Councilwoman Lillie Dobson’s adult son was shot and wounded outside her home late last year by a man suspected of killing two other people the same night.

“As long as these people keep getting away they’re going to do it again,” Dobson said. “I’m willing to work on it today because tomorrow might be too late. Tomorrow might be too late for me or for you.”

City officials said they would consult with the sheriff about how best to spend the $225,000 approved Tuesday.

The cost of a single deputy in a standard 56-hour patrol car -- including the liability, vacation relief, supervisors and support staff -- is $278,119 per year.

But because the money is coming from a federal grant, the city could get a discount from the sheriff permitting two additional deputies to be hired, City Manager Barbara Kilroy said.

Capt. Eric Hamilton, who heads the Compton station, said Tuesday after the council meeting that the focus of his personnel and city officials remains on decreasing violent crime.

“We’re not paralyzed by what’s going on,” he said.

“We’re going to respond and we’re going to do right by the community.”