LAPPL Blog: The official blog of the Los Angeles Policy Protective League
OMG, pls stop b4 u kill sum1
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 06/10/2010 @ 10:59 PM
L.A. Fire Chief Millage Peaks offered a sobering statistic Monday as he joined Chief Beck and Mayor Villaraigosa in launching a campaign to stop the dangerous practice of texting while driving: The LAFD responds to 100 traffic accidents a day and 28 percent are caused by someone texting while driving. That’s potentially more than 10,000 accidents in Los Angeles annually that could be prevented simply by focusing on the road instead of your iPhone, Blackberry or cell phone.
The U.S. Department of Transportation tells us there are three forms of distracted driving: Taking one’s eyes off the road (visual), taking one’s hands off the steering wheel (manual) or taking one’s attention off driving (cognitive), any of which creates a greater risk of injury or death while driving. Because texting while driving involves all three, it is the most dangerous form of distracted driving. Other research has shown that drivers who send or receive a text message tend to take their eyes off the road for about five seconds, enough time for a vehicle going at highway speed to travel more than 100 yards. This helps explain why nearly 6,000 people died in crashes involving distracted or inattentive drivers last year and more than 500,000 were injured. Researchers found that the most frequent offenders are the youngest and least-experienced drivers – men and women under the age of 20.
Chief Beck noted that it is illegal to text while driving and he has instructed officers to enforce the law. Every time a motorist is stopped for such an infraction, he/she spreads the word to family, friends and coworkers that police are cracking down on the dangerous practice. As the word gets out, more and more people will comply with the law – for their own and others’ safety.
In our fast-paced, multitasking society – where we all feel time challenged – it can be very tempting to read and/or respond to text messages while stopped at a traffic signal or in gridlock. We certainly hope the campaign launched this week will cause people to take steps to avoid the temptation. If you find it hard to resist, try this: Silence your device and put it in the glove compartment until you reach your destination. You will be doing your part to make our streets and highways much safer.
A meaningful Memorial Day
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/28/2010 @ 12:24 AM
Every day, peace officers put on their uniforms and go to work to safeguard America's communities and uphold the freedoms we hold dear. This weekend is Memorial Day and we will honor another group of individuals whose contributions and sacrifice have made this country safer. On Memorial Day we pay respect to veterans who have died serving our country.
(Photo: www.usmc.mil)
This Memorial Day is especially meaningful to the LAPD in the wake of the recent death of Sgt. Major Robert “R.J.” Cottle. R.J. was not only a 27-year Marine veteran who was killed in Afghanistan; he was a highly regarded LAPD SWAT officer.
This weekend we will remember soldiers like R.J. who are America's patriots and gave what Abraham Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. Their ultimate sacrifice serves as a constant reminder of the high cost of freedom and the hope for a safer, more peaceful world.
Please take time this Memorial Day to do more than just mark a three-day weekend. We can all make a difference with our individual acts, such as saying a prayer for the families of those who have lost loved ones, visiting the grave of a fallen veteran, or attending or participating in a Memorial Day parade.
We must also remember those veterans who returned home physically but are emotionally scarred by the horrors of war – horrors that continue to haunt them years and decades after the battle has ended. We have a responsibility to our wartime disabled, an obligation that cannot be discharged by the passage of time, or excused by monetary constraint.
Memorial Day is about many things, but it is mostly about refusing to forget. In your prayers this weekend, please take the time to honor the memory of R.J. and other American veterans who fought to bring peace, freedom, and prosperity to the world.
Honoring the best of the best
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/25/2010 @ 04:09 PM
Several members of the LAPPL Board were proud to attend last Thursday’s 49th Annual Medal of Valor awards ceremony, when the LAPD presented its highest and most prestigious award to 17 of its finest at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland. As has been the tradition of the LAPD for 49 years, the officers received the Medal of Valor for knowingly and willingly placing themselves in harm's way, whether or not they were on duty.
Fourteen of the officers who received medals were involved in what is referred to as the Welby Way incident. On February 7, 2008, a 20-year-old gunman who had killed his father and brother barricaded himself in his parents’ home, causing a standoff when SWAT officers attempted to rescue additional hostages.
Receiving the Medal of Valor for their roles in this incident were: Officers David Keortge, Thomas Chinappi, James Veenstra, German Hurtado, Randal Simmons, Floyd Curry, Anthony Samuelson, Stephen Scallon, Michael Barker, Michael Odle, George Ryan, Mark Mireles and Bonnie Lehigh, and Sergeant Charles Buttitta.
Officer Mireles had also received two previous Medals of Valor, making him the first LAPD officer in history to receive the award three times.
Providing one of the event’s most poignant moments, a visibly moved Chief Beck presented a posthumous medal to Matthew Simmons, son of Officer Randal David Simmons. Killed in the Welby Way incident, Officer Simmons, a 27-year veteran, was LAPD's first SWAT officer to die in the line of duty.
Officers Steven Beumer of Hollywood Division, who was off duty at the time, and Alonso Menchaca of Mission area were awarded medals for their diligent and lifesaving efforts in rescuing the trapped driver of a burning vehicle on December 22, 2007.
Officer Eric Hammerschmitt received a medal for his heroic attempts to rescue a man and his daughter in another burning vehicle incident on the San Diego freeway on June 1, 2008. He managed to pull the driver to safety and rushed back to save the daughter. Sadly, despite Officer Hammerschmitt’s courageous actions, neither of the victims survived their injuries.
The Board of Directors of the LAPPL congratulates the 2010 recipients of the Medal of Valor. Your dedication to the highest standards of law enforcement, combined with extraordinary courage and bravery, are an inspiration to all who serve with you.
Are police officers the unspoken concern when it comes to Arizona’s new law?
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/14/2010 @ 01:19 PM
Much of the debate currently raging over Arizona’s new law, which directs law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of people who have been legally stopped, misses the point.
Opponents fear the law will become an excuse to terrorize Hispanics, who will be constantly challenged to prove they are here legally. They believe police officers will use the law as an opportunity to make life miserable for illegal residents in hopes they will pick up and go back home.
But where is the evidence for that?
Police officers are subject to closer review and scrutiny than any other public safety professional. Integrity and professionalism are their core values. Those who say we can’t trust our police to follow the law are basically saying we can’t trust our police – and we take issue with that.
Setting aside the inevitable tiny minority of bad apples found in any line of work, police officers in the United States are honest public officials deeply dedicated to not just enforcing, but obeying the law as they do their jobs.
While we are not taking a political position on the Arizona law, the fact is that it limits officers’ immigration status queries to people who have been legally stopped for some other reason. Even then, officers must have and be able to articulate in a written report the basis for a reasonable suspicion that the person is unlawfully present in the United States. This isn’t the pretext for a police state and it isn’t setting people up to be questioned while they are at an ice cream stand with their kids. It’s simply providing local and state police officers with the same kind of investigative discretion currently available to federal law enforcement officers.
Just like in Los Angeles under Special Order 40, illegal aliens who are otherwise law abiding residents should not fear the police. And just like Los Angeles, we think that everyone agrees that removing illegal aliens, who perpetrate crimes in our country, will make us all safer.
We are supportive of an honest public debate on the Arizona law, but let’s not make police officers’ ability or trustworthiness to constitutionally enforce the law, the underlying debate.
Cause for concern?
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/13/2010 @ 02:00 PM
We don’t wish to be alarmists, and we hope our concerns turn out to be unfounded as the year progresses, but it is a bit unsettling today to find Los Angeles on a short list of cities reporting increases in murders so far this year. The other major cities reporting that murder is on the rise are New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, according to a USA Today story.
Some good news is that overall violent crime is down 13 percent in Los Angeles so far this year – but murders are up from 102 last year to 111 this year. Our concerns are heightened by decreased police coverage on the streets due to restrictions on police overtime, officers being forced to take time off and officers increasingly performing administrative duties because of vacant civilian positions.
Former Chief Bratton put it most clearly when he commented that every time a person is murdered, it not only takes an emotional toll on the family and the community, it cost about $1 million in economic damage to society. A Rand Corp. study released earlier this year showed the unmistakable correlation between police coverage and crime. As the size of a police force increases, crime – and the costs associated with it – go down. Moreover, Rand’s analysis showed the benefits of having additional officers and preventing crime significantly outweigh the personnel costs of the officers.
As police know all too well, crime tends to increase with summer temperatures. We sincerely hope the troubling trend in murders in Los Angeles turns out to be a statistical aberration. But we can’t help being uneasy.
Skobin tapped for VP of the Police Commission
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/06/2010 @ 03:38 PM
We applaud the election of Alan J. Skobin as vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Skobin, who is now in his second term, was first appointed by Mayor James Hahn in 2003 and reappointed in 2005 by Mayor Villaraigosa. He has brought invaluable experience and insight to the commission at a critical time in the history of the LAPD and the city.
Commissioner Skobin generously devotes his time and expertise to serve the public and police officers. Last year, he spearheaded the creation of the LAPD Purple Heart award, which is now awarded to the families of officers killed in the line of duty and to officers who sustain traumatic physical injury during an on-duty tactical situation. He was also the driving force behind the successful effort to acquire new ASTRO radios for officers.
Commissioner Skobin has also been a reserve deputy sheriff with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for 30 years, reaching the rank of reserve chief. His experience includes patrol, the detectives unit and administration. He has also served on the LAPD's Valor Awards Evaluation Committee, and has received the coveted Distinguished Service Award from the Sheriff’s Department for his overall service. Prior to joining the Sheriff’s Department, he served as a reserve police officer with the San Fernando Police Department for eight years, attaining the rank of sergeant. He is also a graduate of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Federal Bureau of Investigation Citizen’s Academy.
Commissioner Skobin’s Department liaison and committee assignments include Use of Force, Anti-Terrorism, Transportation and Traffic, the Police Reserve Program, Valley Bureau and Operations. He previously served as a commissioner and vice president of the Los Angeles City Board of Transportation Commissioners. He is also vice president and general counsel of Galpin Motors, Inc.
The League looks forward to continuing its excellent working relationship with Vice President Skobin and we congratulate him on his election to this leadership role.
State parole authorities scramble to locate wrongly released inmates
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/04/2010 @ 04:37 PM
When the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced in May of 2009 that the state would be relying on a computer program called the Parole Violation Decision Making Instrument (PVDMI) to decide which parole violators would be returned to prison, we objected – warning that the programs’ real purpose was not to increase public safety, but to cut costs by lowering the prison population. Many other groups familiar with the criminal justice system were opposed to the PVDMI program, too, because it removed the most important element in evaluating the danger of an individual: human judgment.
Sure enough, the PVDMI system has been used to avoid sending parole violators back to prison. The program has already been shown to have serious flaws in classifying inmates, incorrectly labeling hundreds of them as “non-serious” felons when in fact many of them have disturbing and violent criminal histories. A Sunday San Diego Union-Tribune article revealed that some of the early releases include Steven Frank Corral, arrested for felony spousal abuse; Isaac Villa, released from prison after raping a girl under 16; and Miguel Olea, who held a 17-year-old girl in his room against her will for days, raping her repeatedly.
The Department of Corrections achieved a public-safety double whammy when they started releasing inmates in January 2010. In addition to early release, the prisoners were placed on non-revocable parole – meaning they would neither be supervised nor returned to prison for a parole violation. Corrections spokesman Gordon Hinkle bizarrely announced that non-revocable parole was an incentive program for local law enforcement to capture and convict these inmates when they committed new crimes. We denounced both the releases and the modifications to the program.
As parole authorities now scramble to locate those mistakenly released inmates who are roaming our streets freely, we repeat our call to end both the early release program and the use of the flawed determination system. We have been fortunate that no innocent civilians or police officers have been killed by a wrongly released felon. We can only hope that we will continue to be so lucky until this program is discontinued.
A lesson from Times Square
By LAPPL Board of Directors on 05/04/2010 @ 12:58 PM
Within hours of the car bomb incident in Times Square, LAPD held a news conference to assure the public that the Department is prepared to react in the event of a similar incident in Los Angeles. Capt. Horace Frank told reporters there was no reason to believe a bomb threat was imminent in L.A. and that there was nothing specific the LAPD is going to do beyond the normal state of continued vigilance. The LAPD, he explained, uses a "trifecta" approach to terrorist threats, which involves well-trained police officers, one of the country’s largest bomb detection units and community engagement.
(Photo: Reuters)
A big reason the incident in New York didn’t turn into a catastrophe was because police officers were nearby and able to respond quickly when a citizen reported smoke coming from inside an SUV. This incident serves as an important reminder of why we simply can’t afford to reduce the police presence on our streets and in our neighborhoods.
While L.A. officers are superbly trained, they can’t prevent a threat if there are inadequate ranks policing the city. As we have documented numerous times in the last year and a half, budget cuts have resulted in fewer police on duty.
Also, as our fellow LAPD officer “Jack Dunphy” pointed out in his blog about the incident, perhaps the LAPD needs to reconsider its decision to down-size its anti-terrorism unit – and reassign those officers to do what they were specially trained to do.
With so many possible terrorist targets in our city, it’s foolish and irresponsible to ignore the possibility of a Times Square incident. In addition to watchful residents, we need sufficient numbers of officers and specialists to prevent and react to threats. We again call on the city leadership to reject any more cuts to the public safety budget.
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