Los Angeles Police Department's response time to emergencies
Budget cuts not linked to response time
LOS ANGELES - Police Chief Charlie Beck said today the Los Angeles Police Department's response to emergencies has not been slowed down by budget cuts, but did not offer guarantees for the future.
"Many of the issues we're dealing with have not affected response time at this point. That is not to say that they won't in the future,'' Beck told the Police Commission.
Beck said the department is determined to focus its limited resources on its "core missions,'' and a quick response to emergencies is among those.
According to Beck, LAPD officers have taken an average of 5.7 minutes to respond to emergencies this year -- an improvement over last year's 6.2 minutes.
Because of budget cuts, the department has been compensating officers with time off rather than overtime pay after they put in a certain number of hours. Beck told reporters last week this reduces the number of officers on duty.
Last week, a Los Angeles Times analysis showed the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department took a minute longer to respond to 911 calls last month, on average, when compared to last year.
The increased response time came after the department's budget was cut by $128 million, but officials said they could establish a direct link between the two.
LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles City Council agreed today to boost the amount that Los Angeles residents are billed when police officers respond to a false alarm call.
The ordinance, which still needs to be signed by the mayor, would up the city's False Alarm Fee to $149 from the current $136.
The increase was planned months ago, when the council was crafting the budget for this fiscal year and looking for ways to shrink the deficit.
LOS ANGELES - Police Chief Charlie Beck announced a reorganization of the Los Angeles Police Department, as well as the promotion of several officers -- including the first black woman to be given the rank of commander.
Captain III Regina Scott's promotion will become effective Oct. 10. She will then become the assistant commanding officer of the LAPD's Information Technology Bureau.
After killing 10 Black women and at least one Black man in South Central Los Angeles for almost 25 years, a man suspected of being the so-called “Grim Sleeper” was arrested yesterday by the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD took 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. into custody at his home on 81st Street near Western Avenue. His arrest is the culmination of an investigation that began more than two decades ago.
Growing up in inner city New Jersey, Regina Scott always saw police officers strolling into her community, but she never saw an African American female in uniform.
“Then I saw Christie Love, and knew I wanted to become a police officer,” recalls Scott, who chose that route even though people steadily told her it wouldn’t happen.
Undeterred, Scott began plotting a career course that would prepare her for that dream job.
In the movie “Django Unchained,” a slave gets his revenge on White slave owners by killing them. Many believe this modern-day “Spaghetti Western” created the label of the “bad Black man” (Django) that has been given to accused murderer and ex-Los Angeles Police Officer Christopher Dorner.
