Talk:Los Angeles Police Department

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[edit] List of firsts

Something needs to be done about the list of "firsts" which looks like propaganda directly from a recruiting brochure. Examples:

"the first proactive Police Department." The definintion of "proactive police department" is so open to dispute as to be meaningless. This could arguably apply to any organization from the Bow Street Runners on, depending on what "proactive" meant at the time.

"the first law enforcement agency to outlaw gambling and prostitution." Law enforcement agencies don't outlaw anything - they enforce laws. Even so, there have been anti-gambling laws and "morals" laws in this country since the Mayflower Landing.

"most modern police tactics and tools were first tested or designed by the LAPD." Also so open to dispute it is meaningless. Is foot patrol a "modern police tool"? It is certainly emphasized in modern community policing doctrines, but foot patrols date back to the beginnings of policing.

"they have been called the best dressed police department." Also meaningless. Who called them that? Why is their uniform dress unique? And what possible policing significance does it have?

I though about simple deleting these, but I thought some-one more familiar with LAPD history could better revise the list to contribute to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.180.230 (talk • contribs)

That's a good point. I'm moving the list here so that we can find sources for it. -Will Beback 01:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced list

  • Also the First U.S. African American police officer was a Los Angeles police officer.
  • The LAPD were the first Police Department to use helicopters. LAPD also boasts the largest rooftop helipad and the largest municipal police air support operation.
  • the first to have a Special Weapons And Tactics team.
  • the first to have a VICE unit and an anti-gang unit.
  • the first proactive Police Department.
  • the first law enforcement agency to outlaw gambling and prostitution.
  • with the School District Police they formed an Int'l anti-drug program named the DARE program.
  • had the first vehicle two-way police radio.
  • are the basis in which most of law enforcement agencies in California design a badge, police car, uniform, or anything after.
  • most modern police tactics and tools were first tested or designed by the LAPD.
  • they have been called the best dressed police department.
  • The world famous Los Angeles Police Academy at Elysian Park, near Dodger Stadium, has a sign at the entrance proclaiming "Only the world's finest police officers may pass through these steps."
  • They have the first and only round the clock surveillance and deterrence for hardened and repeat felonly convicted criminals with the sole purpose of discrete suppression of gratuitous violence and mayhem utilized by a sub-group of detectives working under official departmental policy. The LAPD's Special Investigations Section [SIS] (radio call sign 5-King-90) was established in 1967 and continues to operate today as a last-stop checkpoint for unruly, repeat felony offending criminals in Los Angeles. Although plagued by controversial shootings and repeated criticism by the public, the SIS continue to serve as a discreet security blanket against the most hardened of criminals in LA County. With an operating force of about 20-30 detectives (all rumored to be picked out from Robbery-Homicide Bureaus throughout the city and within the Metropolitan Division) headquartered out of the Metropolitan Division's Parker Center, there is still much unknown about the activities of these officers despite how the media fictionally portrays them.

[edit] Books / Novels

Categories seem redundant. Merge the two? -Roy Laurie

I think it's worthwhile separating the fiction from the non-fiction. -Will Beback 22:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'll move the two fiction books accordingly. --Roy Laurie 07:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps they should be labeled "Fiction" and "Non-fiction" then, to make it a bit clearer? -Russia Moore 01:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move the lists of books, movies, etc. to a separate list page.

These lists could go on forever.

Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 03:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Yea, i argee, go ahead. As they are making more films about the LAPD - the films don't really need to be included in this article about the LAPD do they? Unless the LAPD actually make a film about themselfs.

Dep. Garcia 22:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move police chiefs list to a separate page?

I would like to move the list of police chiefs to a separate page. What does everybody think?

Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 06:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arrest techiques

Please view this video to see how to assist in an arrest by punching the arrestee in the face while your partner helps hold him still: [http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xF7zejCaRc Video link to youtube.com]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.44.151 (talk • contribs)

[edit] LAPD police brutality section and police brutality links discussion

Currently, the only 'discussion' is going on in the edit summaries. If this Edit war continues, it is likely that the article will be temporarily protected. To prevent that, the editors involved in the dispute should discuss things here on the talk page.

When I looked at the links that were recently readded, I noticed that at least one of them absolutely should not be in the article because it is about the UCLA police department and not the LAPD. Another of the links [1] is a VERY uninformative blog entry with some confusing pictures. It's worthless as a link for this article. The rest of them currently do not support any text in the article and therefore are also useless at references.

If you want something in the article about the very long history of police brutality from the LAPD, WRITE IT UP. Don't just dump a rather random bunch of links into the article that won't help the reader of this encyclopedia article. BlankVerse 13:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improving the LAPD article

As the article is currently written, it is in need of a good weed whacking. For example, there is much in the article that basically repeats what is on the LAPD website, such as the "LAPD organization" section, as well as the info on "ranks" in the force composition section. That information should be deleted. (see WP:NOT for the reasons.)

There are other large sections that I think should be offloaded to their own 'daughter' articles, such as the Radio section moved to Radio use by the Los Angeles Police Department. The large "LAPD in the media" should also get its own article, as well as moving "LAPD Chiefs of Police" to List of Los Angeles Police Department Chiefs of Police.

The huge History section needs to be divided into subsection divided by eras (mostly by Police Chiefs), and the gang enforcement description should be moved to its own section.

Does anyone else have any suggestions, or any comments on my suggestions. BlankVerse 13:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing information

There is nothing in the article on any of the LAPD's

What else is the article missing? BlankVerse 14:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No Tact in Comments

Don't forget about the ranking system. I clicked on a link to find out how the LAPD ranking system worked and I couldn't find it. That's another thing to be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drakonis (talk • contribs) 15:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LA Police Commission Merge

I do not belive that that article should be merged with this one. Those are two separate entities, one consisting of civilians tasked with overseeing and regulating the police department, the other consisting of uniformed officers tasked with regulating the citizens of the City of Los Angeles. I don't see how the two mix. Lasdlt 19:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree the commision is a political branch of the mayors office, appointed by the mayor to oversee the PD. They are usually attorneys, are a citizen oversight board. They also get changed out quite often.

[edit] Organization

This entire section needs to be rewritten. It's full of inaccuracies, racist comments, and just a lot of general stupidity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arkannis (talk • contribs) 11:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly, this article does have a lot of hidden vandalism, inaccuracies, racism, and just general misinformation, anyone who knows about this subject can help vastly in improving and fixing this article. Janus8463 00:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of which, is there any decent citation for the claim that the population of the Mission Division is "mostly" illegal immigrants? Mostly Latino, to be sure, but I don't buy that claim about their immigration status. Alanmjohnson (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In popular media??

This section seems to be just in TV and films. What about Music? I can think of a LOT of songs about the LAPD. 82.36.125.13 19:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivia lists like that are discouraged in Wikipedia articles. In it's previous incarnation, this section was removed for just that reason. The idea is not to list every mention, but to explain in prose what pop culture illustrates about the LAPD.--chaser - t 21:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LAPD Wilshire Division

I'm inclined to nominate this for deletion, but would like to hear from others who may know something about the subject. Any chance this could become a solid article, or should it be nuked? — xDanielx T/C\R 22:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

In their current state, the separate division articies are not notable by themselves. As such, I have moved the text from the division articles that I found into this article and requested speedy delete for the division articles. There is clearly no need for the separate articies. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 07:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Because the content from these articles was merged into this article, deletion was not an option, as the contribution history must be preserved per the GFDL. I have redirected the division articles to this article. --Kinu t/c 07:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding the controversies/scandals sections

lets be honest, LAPD is most notable for being an relentlessly ill-behaved police force. i'm not even from LA, i'm from the east coast, and everybody knows that the LAPD is notorious. call that my POV, but the incidents speak for themselves. so it's fair to assume that many people are coming to this page to read about that sort of stuff. but the detail on the page is lacking. the way the scandals section is organized resembles a stub: perhaps we should include a brief explanation next to each link? plus, the controversies section is more than half made up of one incident; plus, needless to say, there's more controversies than the ones listed. 160.39.130.95 (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This should not turned into a link dump. I have integrated the links into a coherent text and created separate articles for the two controversies related at large. Str1977 (talk) 12:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I am an Angeleno (multi-generational) and I would hardly characterize the LAPD as any more notorious than any other urban police department that has had its share of scandals. That aside, the section reflects a good deal of recency and is just a collection of major and minor scandals, all muddled together with no perceptible system of organization. Meanwhile to very important ones, the "Sleepy Lagoon" murders of the 1940's and related events, and the CRASH scandal that lead to the Christopher Commission aren't even mentioned in the section. It need some serious reworking. Drmargi 18:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction facts

Per Skyfox11's comments that got deleted, something is wrong somewhere when the start of the article claims "it is the fifth largest law enforcement agency in the United States (behind the New York City Police Department, Chicago Police Department, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation)" and the Los_Angeles_County_Sheriff's_Department article claims it the LASD is the "The LASD is...the fourth largest state or local law enforcement agency in the United States"

Can someone look into the facts and correct both articles as necessary? Mfield (talk) 05:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll look into it and get back to you. Velcrochicken17 (talk) 18:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)