Paul M. Weber

September, 2010

State’s Public Safety Policy: Commuting Violent Felons

The safety of the residents in our communities must always be the most important obligation of the government. Recent high-profile issues with parolees have many people concerned that in an effort to save money, the state is sacrificing public safety by releasing dangerous felons early or on parole. They are right to be concerned, as we have been making this case for over a year now!

On July 10, two LAPD officers attempted to stop a DUI suspect, later identified as Javier Joseph Rueda. A brief pursuit ensued and at the end of the pursuit, Rueda exited his car armed with a handgun and fired 10 shots at the officers. Several of the bullets Rueda fired struck the police car. The officers returned fire. Rueda was wounded and taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. His two loaded semi-automatic handguns were recovered at the scene. One officer sustained a gunshot wound and is now recovering. The second officer sustained a fracture due to a fall during the incident.

Both officers are extremely lucky to be alive after this brazen attack. We have now learned that Rueda was on active parole and a documented Vineland Boys gang member. Rueda has been on parole since January 25, 2009, after being convicted of possession of a controlled substance while armed with a firearm, possession of a silencer, vehicle theft and evading a police officer. He was sentenced to a total of 10 years in state prison.

After looking closer at Rueda’s record after his attempted murder of the officers, it was revealed that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) does not take into account a felon’s street-gang affiliation when determining how to classify and monitor parolees! Outraged, the League — along with Chief Beck — is loudly questioning the ill-conceived parole policies of the CDCR in the media. The fact that Rueda was classified as non-violent is mind boggling. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s refusal to consider a prisoner’s street-gang membership when classifying prisoners for release underscores that their classification system is a fraud, completely dismissive of public safety. It is simply being used to empty prisons of inmates — regardless of their danger to society — all in the interest of saving a few dollars.

Incredibly, Rueda was released on non-revocable parole, meaning that he had to commit another crime to be sent back to prison, not just violate parole. Let’s start calling this program what it is — a commutation program. Because the net effect of the new rules is that felons are having their prison sentences commuted.

L.A. Breaks Its Arizona Boycott

The Los Angeles City Council has voted to extend contracts with companies with offices in Arizona. In May, the City voted to boycott Arizona after it passed an anti-illegal immigration law. The City broke the boycott stance, citing public safety reasons, and extended a contract with Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions to operate red-light cameras for the LAPD.

Regardless of your stance on immigration and the Arizona law, there’s one thing we should all agree on: Boycotting Arizona is wrong. A boycott is nothing more than economic retribution that hurts small businesses and residents in an effort to make a political statement. That, in part, is why musician Elton John, a well-known activist, not only shrugged off suggestions that he should boycott Arizona, but went one step further and criticized other musicians for boycotting Arizona over the immigration law. According to local newspaper accounts, from the stage at his sold-out Tucson Arena concert, John said, “We are all very pleased to be playing in Arizona. I have read that some of the artists won’t come here. They are [expletive] wits! Let’s face it: I still play in California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights whatsoever. So what’s the [expletive] with these people?” The bottom line is that boycotts don’t work — they just negatively impact local businesses.

Lost in the discussion about the new law and the boycott is that Arizonans were trying to make their state safer because of the increased problems caused by drug cartels, human smugglers and groups that want to smuggle terrorists into our country through the Mexican border.

The Arizona law was enacted because the federal government has failed to do its job to secure our nation’s borders. The violence from Mexico is greatly impacting residents in Arizona. Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war against drug cartels in 2006, about 25,000 people have been killed in Mexico due to drug violence, and spillover violence has plagued U.S. border cities for the past several years. When the border violence, drug cartels and human smuggling impact a state, the people living in the state have every right to do something about it!

This September marks the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Some people seem to have forgotten that our nation was attacked and almost 3,000 people were murdered by terrorists. Al-Qaeda will certainly try again, and they will have no problem figuring out how to enter our country or bring the means to kill more Americans. The partisan bickering needs to stop and Americans need to be secure in their own nation. Secure our borders now!

Congress Discusses Broadband

The dry subject of broadband and radio frequencies for law enforcement was recently in the news because many of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies filed comments with Congress objecting to plans that give much-needed bandwidth to a variety of other users.

Former Chief Bratton testified before Congress saying that it is clear that 10 MHz is not enough bandwidth for large-scale emergencies. He cited a New York City study that found that even in normal day-to-day operations, 10 MHz will fall short within six years. In the case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster, when demand spikes, this band of spectrum would immediately prove inadequate.

As we all know, in many high-profile incidents, from fires in L.A. to the terrorist attacks in New York, it has not been the lack of innovative radios that causes communication breakdowns and sometimes the loss of life — it is the lack of sufficient infrastructure for agencies to communicate. You can have the slickest device in the world, but if you don’t have a common and dependable spectrum, adequate coverage or capabilities, you will not have interoperability.

I am happy to report that in Los Angeles County, the process is underway for developing the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS), a modern, integrated wireless voice and data communications system that will support more than 34,000 first responders and local mission-critical personnel within the region. The public safety community within the Los Angeles region is working together to provide the necessary leadership and secure the funding needed to develop and deploy LA-RICS. The LAPD is participating in LA-RICS and is working with other agencies in developing interoperable public safety communications. LA-RICS is trying to do what Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura, San Diego and other counties have already done — pool frequencies and utilize existing infrastructure where practical. When finished, LA-RICS will provide unified voice and data communications platforms for all first responders in the region, eliminate the duplication of costs and effort involved in maintaining separate systems, provide instantaneous communications among agencies in the event of a man-made or natural disaster and support the day-to-day communications needs within individual public safety agencies.

Impact of Economy on Police Budgets

The City furloughs, coupled with vacancies in most LAPD civilian positions, are impacting public safety, not to mention creating hardship on employees and their families.

As we have been saying for months, the number of civilian vacancies in the LAPD means officers are increasingly being diverted from the streets to perform administrative duties. (The LAPD was authorized last June to employ nearly 4,000 civilians but now has fewer than 2,900. Civilian employees play a vital role in LAPD operations and are essential to a fully functional, effective Department.)

With fewer officers, many law enforcement agencies are changing strategy. In Oakland, since the layoffs of 80 police officers in July, the Department is focusing on emergencies and abandoning community problem solving and investigations of non-violent crimes.

The San Francisco Police Department will soon use civilians, not officers, to investigate non-violent crimes. The pilot program will train 15 civilians to interview victims and witnesses, write reports, take crime-scene photos and collect fingerprints and DNA evidence. They will only be dispatched to non-violent crime scenes such as burglaries. San Francisco Chief George Gascon says the civilians will cost less money than uniformed officers, and they are also expected to free up officers to investigate crimes in progress and dangerous offenders. Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, says evidence collected by civilians might not stand up in court.

The city of Maywood shut down their Police Department and is now contracting with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to handle all police services.

In Pomona, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has completed a preliminary study on the cost of taking over police services. The ultimate decision — if it comes to that — would be left to the voters, possibly as early as this fall.

Former Pomona Police Chief and current Los Angeles Police Commission Executive Director Richard Tefank spoke in favor of the Pomona Police Department and its personnel during a meeting in April, when he said, “No one can replace the men and women of the Pomona Police Department. The idea of going to the county for law enforcement services has come up several times before [including during his period as chief during the mid-1980s]. Switching from city to county law enforcement doesn’t mean all of the city’s employees would transfer over. Pomona will have to pick up costs associated with those employees who don’t get hired by the Sheriff’s Department.”

While Richard spoke about the money involved to switch over for Pomona, it is clear that the impact of the economy is causing many communities to examine their law enforcement budgets, and this scenario could be repeated across the state.

Please contact me at paulweber@lappl.org with any comments or questions.