A recent Los Angeles Times headline summed up a decade that all of us in law enforcement hope will never be repeated, when they wrote, “It was a terrifying time.” On Wednesday’s front-page story, veteran crime reporters Scott Gold and Andrew Blankstein recount a 10-year period beginning in 1984 when the LAPD was recording a violent crime every eight minutes and people could be killed with impunity. The article is a recommended reading for everyone – police officers and citizens alike.
To put the era in perspective, in 1984 Los Angeles police investigated 757 murders, 240% more than they investigated in 2009, and 51,247 violent crimes, 216% more than they investigated in 2009, according to the Times story. And they had to do it with 2,000 fewer officers than today’s force. In South L.A. and the surrounding neighborhoods, LAPD detectives estimate that more than 100 women, almost all African American, were killed during that 10-year period. Some of the cases have been solved; others remain open. Detectives say many are tied to five serial killers operating in the area.
The story describes how police work and the LAPD are much different from 20 years ago. For one, today’s LAPD uses tools which weren’t available then, such as the Three-Strikes law, gang injunctions, DNA technology and new communications capabilities. All of that has been a factor in turning around what seemed like a hopeless situation at the time. This is not to suggest everything is rosy in policing L.A. Every day brings new challenges and threats. Today, we are having to work with fewer resources than in recent years due to the city budget crisis.
If you were a police officer in that era (1984-1993), stop and reflect on how much has changed since that most difficult decade -- to the benefit of our quality of work life, the Department and the City. If you are a relative newcomer to L.A. city policing, read the Gold-Blankstein article for an appreciation and better understanding of what law enforcement was like in those days and how far we’ve come.
