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Resources of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Department's deployment of officers has reflected the growth and changes of the City of Los Angeles since the late 19th century. The earliest police station (or "division" as the early ones were known - this term was originally meant to mean the Patrol Division but over time this term became commingled and substituted for what today we would refer to as the actual brick and mortar police building the divisions were housed within) was Central Division, located in what today would be known as downtown Los Angeles on the southeast corner of 1st and Hill Streets. This station opened in 1896 and as the Department's first dedicated police station (another had been located at 2nd/ Spring Streets, but was possibly a leased or rented storefront type of set-up). The Central Jail was located directly south of it. "Old Central" as it came to be known, housed not only Central Division but also many of the Department's headquarters units until its closure in about 1955 in favor of Parker Center. The following is a listing of other Los Angeles Police Stations through the years, along with their original division numbers:
The city's largest growth period was from approximately the late 19th century through the 1930s when the city grew at a geometric rate. Approximately 100 smaller portions were added to the original five square mile Pueblo. Of these, about 90 were formerly unincorporated county lands. The remaining ten portions had been their own incorporated cities. These included the cities of: Watts, Venice (originally Ocean Park), Hollywood, San Pedro, Wilmington, Barnes, Hyde Park, Eagle Rock, Sawtelle and Tujunga. Generally when the city consolidated another existing city, its police officers became LAPD officers with corresponding ranks and titles at the LAPD, per the city charter. LAPD would create a new Division, named after the city that had been consolidated and would continue using the prior city's police station, usually replacing these facilities with larger police stations within a few years.
To patrol the 498 square miles (1,290 km2) of the city of Los Angeles, the police department utilizes a number of different types of vehicles:
With few 9C1 Chevrolet Caprice vehicles remaining in the motor pool (as the final model year of the Chevrolet Caprice was 1996), the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is one of two sedans for patrol in the department fleet, the other being the newly approved 2008 Dodge Charger LX Police Special. Only the sedan is permitted to engage in a vehicle pursuit, pursuant to department policy. Like most police agencies throughout southern California, Los Angeles Police Department vehicles are ordered painted in black clearcoat with the roof, doors, and pillars painted white from the factory. The Department has used this black-and-white paint scheme since approximately 1940 with minimal modifications. Options available from Ford ordered by the Department today include the handle-bar spotlamps, 16-inch heavy duty steel wheels with chrome center caps, and ballistic panels within the two front doors.
Installed equipment includes the lightbar, front-grill siren and control box from Federal Signal Corporation, the digital two-way radio by Motorola, a notebook PC to function as the Mobile data terminal, and a partition to separate the prisoner rear seating from the driver and front passenger seats. Most cars also have a shotgun mount between the front seats in front of the partition.
Most police vehicles bear at least two rear bumper stickers: one reading "There's NO Excuse - For Domestic Violence" and another for "Watch The Road - Operation Traffix". On the rear side panel is a black and white sticker that reads "EMERGENCY DIAL 9-1-1 Fire Police Medical." The front doors bear the seal of the city of Los Angeles, the department slogan "to protect and to serve" as well as the citywide five-digit "shop number" and city department name (POLICE). The last three numbers of the shop number (used to identify all vehicles operated by the city) are reprinted on the roof to help air units visually identify cars. On the trunk is a number that identifies which division the unit belongs to (e.g., a 25 would be "South Traffic Division" or a 3 would be "Southwest Area").
These cars appeared on the NBC television drama Adam-12:
Kawasaki Police Motorcycles have represented the majority of the motorcycle vehicles in the motor pool with some Harley-Davidson motorcycles and increasingly, BMW motorcycles. Motorcycles are also painted black and white. These motorcycles carry a radio, code-3 equipment, a shotgun and documentation used by a police officer. During rain, motors are garaged, and traffic units patrol the city in sedans.
The LAPD maintains the second largest non-military airforce in the world. It maintains 21 helicopters and 1 fixed wing aircraft [1]. The helicopters are painted silver and blue. The LAPD Air Support Division is slowly trading in their older Eurocopters for newer Eurocopter models. The new models however are entering service with the more traditional black and white paint schemes we are used to seeing on most police department patrol cars. The letters LAPD appear on the top side of the aircraft in blue, capital letters. [2] Typical air units include 14 Eurocopter AS-350B2 AStars, 4 Bell 206B-IIIs and 1 Bell UH-1 (no longer in service, due to maintenance issues). The aircraft come with a wide variety of electronics and equipment that include a 30 million candlepower "Nightsun" spotlight, optical FLIR cameras and electronically stabilized binoculars, a LoJack signal receiver, police radios in addition to the built-in aviation radios.
Two officers with at least three years of patrol car service fly in each air unit; they are armed and able to land and make arrests in areas not accessible by other means. They depart from the Hooper Heliport in downtown Los Angeles, and the Van Nuys airport.
Air units are considered crucial to officer safety, providing valuable information with regards to barricaded suspects, suspects fleeing on foot or in a vehicle, violent incidents involving large numbers of individuals, and then some. Air units are automatically requested when initiating a traffic stop on a "code 37" vehicle, or suspect with known wants or warrants that are a felony in order to limit the potential for a vehicle pursuit.
Air units do not fly during poor weather (particularly dense fog) due to aviation safety.
Occasionally, "cycle" units go on patrol (usually in large numbers), especially during special events to provide fast and easy access to police assistance. Bicycle units may go on patrols lasting between 10–25 miles during any given beat. Bicycle units train rigorously (mainly in the hills of Elysian Park near Academy Road and Dodgers Stadium). The bicycles used by the Los Angeles Police Department are manufactured by Giant.
Metro Division, known for its famous Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, also has an Equestrian Unit that consists of approximately 35 police horses. Normally deployed during special events, specially trained officers also wear jeans as the pants to their uniform along with boots and a Stetson hat with the same Police shield as the one worn on the brim of the traditional police cap. Equestrian units normally appear in the city only during special occasions. Metro Division is also responsible for the K-9 units (also under Metro Division), making Metro Division responsible for not only police horses, but also for police dogs (which also wear ballistic vests) as well. Narcotics and Bomb K-9 units belong to different divisions.
Inspired by a contest in 1924, Police Chief R. Lee Heath ordered his staff to investigate the use of radio to "more quickly dispatch officers to where they are needed." It was not until Police Chief Roy E. Steckel, however, that the department would be assigned its first Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license. On May 1, 1931, KGPL began broadcasting at 1712 kHz, just above the commercial radio broadcasting frequencies. Later, this was changed to 1730 kHz. Any citizen could monitor outgoing police radio traffic on their home sets. The system was "one way" until the mid-1930s when mobile transmitters were installed in patrol units.
Today, telephone calls into the department for police service are handled by the Communications Division. First, an Emergency Board Operator (EBO) answers calls placed to 9-1-1 (with a lower number of operators assigned to the non-emergency 1-877-ASK-LAPD). A call for service results in an incident number, which resets to the number 1—citywide—at midnight each night. Upon receiving the incident, the Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) will go on the air to broadcast to the division (with the option to simulcast on bureau-wide or citywide frequencies). Today, RTOs provide the following information in what is known as a crime broadcast:
There may also be a request by the RTO for the responding unit handling to identify.
A fictitious example of a radio call might begin with tones (to alert patrol units that a broadcast will follow), "Any central unit, a 211 just occurred at 714 south Broadway Street at the Footlocker. Suspect was a male black, six-foot seven, approximately 280 pounds; shaved head, black eyes, goatee, white t-shirt, dark baggy pants. Weapon used was a revolver. Monitor comments for additional. Code 2. Incident number 555 in RD 193."
"Control" (the radio name for Communications division) as well as units in the area also use a wide variety of codes, common ones include:
NOTE: A unit that responds Code-3 must state their starting location (e.g. intersection or street address), after which the RTO broadcasts a Code 3 notification, announcing the unit number is responding Code-3 from that starting location to the location of the distress call.
Typical radio traffic (usually not simulcast citywide) includes the activity generated from traffic stops. A patrol unit may radio control that they are "code 6" on a traffic stop, to which control will give the "Roger" acknowledgement. Additional broadcasts will be requests for information on "cal IDs", or CalOps (the numbers that appear at the top of California Department of Motor Vehicle driver licenses) or on vehicle license plates. The result of which provides all of the expected details about the subject plus important details such as whether or not the licensee has any wants or warrants, FTAs (failure to appear in court) or FTPs (failure to pay a fine), etc. In the case of a vehicle, whether or not it is Code 37. Off the air and via MDT, officers can also see to whom the vehicle is registered.
In the event a Code 6 Charles is broadcast, the unit in question must verify their location, advise if they are Code 4 and the nature of the Code 4 (e.g. Suspect in custody, Common Name, Information Only or Wrong suspect.)
A noticeable characteristic of police broadcasts is the expedited nature of crime broadcasts; due to the number of broadcasts that need to be made at any given moment of the day, each transmission is necessarily as brief as possible. As a standard of police professionalism, RTOs are trained to use a tone that is strictly business-like.
After the parade in Los Angeles celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers 2001 NBA championship title, the police department switched from analog frequencies to digital frequencies. This ended a long-lasting era of the public having easy listening access to police broadcasts that started when the department had initially set up agreements with a local, commercial AM radio station to interrupt regularly scheduled programming for a crime broadcast. Officers were tuned to a specific radio station. However, as the amount of broadcasting needed increased, the department established its first transmission tower in Elysian Park and eventually began broadcasting over dozens of frequencies in the 400mHz and 500mHz ("T-band") ranges. These digital transmissions can be monitored on a proper Uniden Bearcat or Radio Shack digital scanner.
From the perspective of control, each unit is represented by an LAPD-specific callsign. Typically, a callsign is made up of three elements: the division number, the unit type and the "beat" number. For example, division 1 is Central Division (or, now, "Central Area"), an "A" is patrol unit with two officers and their beat number can be a number like 12. Such a unit would identify themselves as 1-A-12 (or 1-Adam-12, using the LAPD phonetic alphabet). There are several patrol types:
The immediate supervisor of any patrol officer is called a Field Supervisor, which typically have beats that end in zero beginning from 2 through 7 (for example, 7-L-60 for a Wilshire Area supervisor). The Watch Commander is a lieutenant or Sergeant-2 at the police station for its geographic division. Their radio code always ends in L-10 (e.g., the watch commander at division 6 or Hollywood Area station is always 6-L-10). The Watch Commander is responsible for the geographic area (e.g. "Southwest Area") and reports to the Area station Captain.
Officers out of their cars are able to communicate over the air using portable Motorola radios nicknamed ROVERs ("Remote Out of Vehicle Emergency Radios"). These hand-held radios are currently Motorola XTS-5000 Models With Some Motorola Astro digital SABER models still being used by very few officers and some still inside older police vehicles. Originally, Motorola MX-series analog handheld units were used when the transition from VHF to UHF "T-band" dispatch/tactical frequencies was made in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, portable 2-way radios (known in LAPD jargon then as "CC units") were either VHF or UHF, mainly Motorola HT-3rd century and HT-220's, stocked in small quantities, and used mainly by specialized units such as Metropolitan division, SWAT (Special Weapons & Tactics), SIS (Special Investigations Section) and Narcotics divisions as stakeout tools. Another use was for footbeats "FB" units, mainly in Central division, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ROVERs are normally utility belt-mounted. For convenience, smaller, corded, hand-held microphones can be plugged into these radios and then clipped to parts of the uniform shirt such as a front pocket or shoulder loop.
The ranks of the LAPD are as follows: