Greetings from the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. The following is the monthly update for March 2007. We hope you find the information useful. We encourage you to continue to visit our website at www.lapdonline.org. LAPD IS HIRING The Los Angeles Police Department is currently seeking the best and brightest men and women to join our ranks. The starting base salary for high school graduates is $52,638. With at least 60 college units, and an overall GPA of 2.0 or better, the starting salary is $54,747. Applicants with a four-year BA or BS degree can start at $56,898. If you are interested, or if you know someone who might be, please visit our recruitment website at www.joinlapd.com. CHIEF’S MESSAGE Since my appointment as Chief of Police in October 2002, the men and women of this Department have worked together to reduce crime, and they have made outstanding progress. For the fifth year in a row, the Department has shown significant decreases in crime in Los Angeles. The per capita crime rate for Part I crimes remained below the 1956 level for the second straight year, and Los Angeles holds the distinction of being the second-safest big city in the nation. Many other large cities are now seeing a spike in crime, while the men and women of this Department continue to keep crime at historic lows. The LAPD has made incredible strides toward regaining its place as national and international leaders in law enforcement, and it also has significantly improved relations with all the communities it serves. Although the Department is making steady progress on our overall crime reduction goals, gang-related crime is up. Last year, crimes specifically related to gangs increased by 15.7 percent Citywide. That’s 1,046 additional gang-related crimes over 2005. Those crimes include 12 additional homicides, 127 additional attempted homicides, 238 additional felony assaults, and 494 additional robberies. The Department’s efforts over the years in determining what crimes are gang-related have been boosted by our intelligence gathering capabilities and by our increasing use of technology. So as crime overall is reduced across the City, we now have the ability to look at the different subsets that make up the total crime picture, and what that picture shows is that gangs continue to be a major contributor to crime in L.A. Gang violence is an unfortunate reality for you, the people of Los Angeles. Recent headlines underscore this point, although it comes as no surprise to anyone in law enforcement. While Los Angeles is not alone in having a gang problem – many other cities have L.A.-style gangs, though not on the same scale – the difference for the Department now is that we can bring some of our real-time analysis capability to bear on identifying the players and addressing the issue head-on. We’ve got significant intelligence and tremendous street level experience. As part of our renewed crime and gang crime reduction efforts, we are going to focus our attention and resources on certain gangs and individual high activity gang members in an effort to get these predators off the streets of L.A. The officers of the LAPD can be proactive and aggressive in targeting gangs and still fulfill their sworn obligation to do so consistently, compassionately and constitutionally. And that is just what we are going to do. Every officer has had enough of going to crime scenes in the aftermath of gang shootings, seeing the distraught families, and of being shot at, disrespected and endangered. We are going to attempt, with our limited resources, to turn the tide and make it increasingly difficult for these murderers to operate their illegal drug fueled enterprises on our streets. As I mentioned in last month’s message, the Department has already begun a full-scale effort directed at the 204th Street Gang in the Harbor Gateway area of the City. We have also increased our efforts in the San Fernando Valley, where gang crime and violence has been particularly prevalent, showing an increase of 44 percent over last year. (The gang crime numbers in the Valley have been historically much lower than in the South and Central Bureaus.) Together with other local law enforcement agencies and through significantly increased cooperative efforts with the Federal government, the LAPD has started a new comprehensive set of initiatives against the gang members with the highest levels of violent assaults against cops and those involved in racial violence. Los Angeles has been terrorized by, victimized by, and made to fear these gangs for far too long. Our new initiatives are intended to stop the growth of gang crime we experienced last year and to begin to reduce the overall levels of violence. First, we will be launching the South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Group. This new LAPD command will bring together over 100 of our most experienced officers and detectives, three full time assistant district attorneys and ten FBI agents. Commander Pat Gannon has already been selected as the commanding officer and is currently developing this entity. This innovative organization will focus exclusively on gang-related murders and attempted murders and use both state and federal laws to prosecute, convict and incarcerate the gang members who commit them. Next we have designated Deputy Chief Gary Brennan as the Department’s Gang Coordinator. In addition to his Chief of Detectives responsibilities, he will be the single point of contact for the Office of the Mayor, other partner agencies and community groups. He will be responsible for bringing continuity, cohesion, and consistency to the Department’s overall gang-reduction strategy, tapping into the funding and other resources we need. The third initiative is the placing of an L.A. gang member on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. The placement of criminal fugitives on the FBI’s list represents the Department’s intention to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate L.A.’s most notorious gang criminals. This is a big commitment from the FBI. The most wanted list is reserved for the worst criminals including the likes of Osama bin Laden. It demonstrates the FBI’s willingness to assist in dismantling these gangs. The Department is also parting with a long held tradition of not naming gangs as part of our public planning and operations. In the past it was felt that naming them elevated their stature in the warped world in which they live and operate. Our top ten list of the most active and violent gangs will change with some frequency as their activities diminish. Bureau Chiefs will keep the list updated to reflect changing priorities. In addition, Operations Valley Bureau has already formed a special enforcement group of over 50 officers, motor personnel, and supervisors who will analyze real-time crime data and other information to rapidly and strategically deploy officers in crime-ridden regions of the Valley. They will deploy in a variety of configurations including high-visibility patrols and other, less traditional, covert means of apprehending violent criminals. Citywide we are encouraging a strategy that will allow all patrol officers—with appropriate training and oversight—to more routinely enforce gang injunctions and serve arrest warrants on named gang members. This initiative is designed to take full advantage of our officer’s skills and expertise and will increase the Department’s ability to protect law-abiding citizens. Our officers will be the key to our success in this effort by helping to put a full court press on identified gang members. While our officers are driving enforcement efforts on the street, our command staff will continue to drive legislative efforts by educating State legislators on the need for additional laws to back us up. Based on our success in joint operations and task forces with other agencies in the Homeland Security arena, we are teaming up in unprecedented ways to share information, enhance relationships, and perform joint operations. These joint operations include our partners from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI, the U.S. Marshal, the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Agency, State Parole, County Probation, LA Unified School District Police, and other law enforcement organizations. Since early February, this has already resulted in the arrest of two gang members from our own top ten list. Since so much of our city is gripped with fear when it comes to gangs, we are going to work aggressively to get the word out through publications and seminars that this gang problem is not insurmountable. We can and will work with you to make your lives more livable by consistently reducing the threat posed by gang violence in your neighborhoods and by improving our efforts to get information from you to help us make arrests. We are capable of making a difference in this long-standing community problem that has cost so many lives and caused so much misery and divisiveness over the past few decades. I am confident that the men and women of the LAPD will rise to the occasion and deliver on the promise we are making to you, the hard working, law-abiding residents of the City of Los Angeles to reduce the threat of gang violence that they live under each day. We have reduced overall Part One crime and homicides by over 30 percent during the past five years and I believe we can do the same with gang related crime. CRIME STATISTICS - CITY-WIDE Year to Date as of March 3, 2007 Homicide Down -28.9% Rape Down -29.5% Robbery Down -6.7% Aggravated Assault Down -9.9% ----------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL VIOLENT CRIMES Down -9.2% Burglary Down -2.6% Burglary/Theft from Vehicle Up 5.9% Personal/Other Theft Down -10.2% Auto Theft Down -0.4% ----------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL PROPERTY CRIMES Down -1.6% TOTAL PART 1 CRIMES Down -3.2% WILLIAM J. BRATTON Chief of Police To unsubscribe from this newsletter please click on this link http://listserv.lacity.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=lapd_monthly&A=1