Incompetence at the LAPD

Unbelievable.

From Jack Dunphy:

On Thursday morning, several hundred LAPD officers and FBI agents conducted raids intended to curtail the activities of the Rollin’ 40s Crips street gang. The raids came after a sixteen-month investigation that resulted in arrest warrants for 74 of the gang’s members. When the operation had concluded Thursday morning, 47 of the suspects had been arrested. Not a bad haul, as these things go, but I think I know why so many got away. This is where that chasm comes in.

As is understood by cops on the street (but not, apparently, by some of their bosses), maintaining a level of secrecy is crucial in mounting an operation such as this one, and officers often go to extraordinary lengths to conceal their preparations from anyone who might tip off the intended targets. For a recent gang sweep near downtown Los Angeles, for example, the command post was set up in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, well away from the neighborhoods where the warrants were served. So it came as something of a surprise to officers assigned to the operation Thursday morning to find that the command post had been set up in a parking lot at the corner of two of the busiest thoroughfares in South Los Angeles, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Worse, this intersection marks the northeast boundary of the area claimed by the very gang the operation was targeting. Assembled there for all the world to see was an array of command post vehicles from the LAPD and the FBI, added to which throughout the night were hundreds of marked and unmarked police cars as well as SWAT trucks and armored cars. Any fool could have driven by and known at a glance that something big was about to go down in the neighborhood.

Incredibly, it got even worse. At around three in the morning, the supervisors for the operation gathered for a briefing from one of the captains in charge. Using a P.A. system that could be heard for blocks, most assuredly in the apartment complex that overlooks the parking lot, an apartment complex in which members of the Rollin’ 40 Crips happen to reside, the captain gave an outline of the operation, even naming the targeted gang and the exact time officers would be serving the warrants. As the incredulous supervisors gaped in amazement, two deputy chiefs, both of whom have applied to succeed Bratton, stood there in blithe ignorance that their officers had been placed in jeopardy and the entire operation compromised. Fortunately, many of the wanted suspects chose to absent themselves from home rather than stick around and shoot it out when the police showed up. Given the warning that had been broadcast to the neighborhood, it’s surprising that even one of them was found at home.

So now perhaps you can understand why LAPD officers are anxious about who Mayor Villaraigosa might select to succeed William Bratton. May he choose wisely. Their are lives depending on it.