The City’s approach to its current budget problems is hiring just enough replacements for LAPD officers lost through retirements and attrition. This approach, however, has been accompanied by an abandonment of the middle management positions needed for the Department to operate effectively.
With scant attention by outsiders, but growing alarm among those in the Department, there is a burgeoning number of vacancies for police officer III (288), sergeant (88), detective (122) and lieutenant (26). These are critical positions that need to be filled, as they are both the frontline supervisors and the Department leaders who make the day-to-day decisions most noticed by the public. Allowing these positions to go unfilled by failing to fund promotion opportunities for rank-and-file officers puts the Department and the City at risk of retreating to a bygone era.
This is not a theoretical concern – it is being felt Department-wide at an alarming rate. Too often in debriefing of incidents where mistakes were made, we find a lack of effective supervision was the primary reason why department policies and procedures were not followed. These leaderless breakdowns have unfortunately led to taxpayer-funded legal settlements. We believe that the failure to adequately fill frontline supervisor positions is leading to a lack of proper supervision and ineffective command and control that is infecting the entire Department. Do we need history to repeat? Have we not learned the lessons of the Rafael Perez/Nino Durden scandal, the Christopher Commission and the Consent Decree?
Supervisors direct, evaluate and monitor officer performance in the field. They respond to the scene of significant incidents; review reports, including arrest and booking reports; ensure the integrity of applications for warrants and the use of confidential informants; and they ensure the appropriate treatment of persons in custody. This is why supervisory positions need to be filled.
It’s not that promotions aren’t being granted. In fact, the Department has promoted 22 command officers. During this time, there have been only six promotions to the rank of detective, 16 to sergeant and 20 to lieutenant.
Funding command staff promotions while ignoring the needs of the day-to-day frontline supervision necessary to police our city is a recipe for disaster. It’s also a cause of frustration for qualified rank-and-file officers waiting on promotional lists established over the last year-and-a-half. The ensuing morale problem can undermine the LAPD’s effectiveness throughout the City.
We know that the large number of vacant positions at the rank of police officer III and above is already a concern to Department leaders; there’s no reason why it shouldn’t concern the Mayor and City Council, too. While City leaders can take satisfaction in seeing that the number of officers is not declining, they still need to understand the damage incurred to the core of the Department by the current hiring and promotion process. We cannot afford to return to the days of rising crime and violence that plagued our City when supervisory ranks were thin.
We call on the Mayor and the City Council to recognize the dangers of continuing to tolerate large numbers of unfilled supervisory positions within the LAPD and do something about it immediately. If City leaders don’t step up to this obvious problem, the decision to continue hiring officers will need to be reconsidered. It makes no sense to keep hiring police officers if we can’t be assured they’ll receive adequate training and supervision when they are patrolling our streets.
Leaving supervisory positions vacant may make short-term financial sense for the City, but could it lead to another leadership breakdown within the Department? Weigh in by leaving a comment below.
