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The Los Angeles Police Department ('''LAPD''') is the Police department of the City of Los Angeles , California . With over 9,500 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of 473 square miles with a population of more than 3.5 million people, it is the fifth largest law enforcement agency in the United States (trailing behind the New York Police Department , Chicago Police Department , California Department of Corrections, and FBI ). The agency has been under federal supervision since 1992. This department is known world wide and has been heavily fictionalized due to its many corruptions in numerous movies and television shows. It has also been involved in a number of controversies, perhaps most notably the infamous Rodney King incident and the subsequent 1992 Los Angeles Riots The LAPD should not be confused with the Los Angeles General Services Police . ORGANIZATION Resources, mobility and technology See Also: Los Angeles Police Department resources Los Angeles Police Department#External links The LAPD has vast resources, including the second largest private or non-military air force in the world. The New York City Police Department or NYPD commands a larger force of 28 helicopters. Air Support Division resources include 26 helicopters ranging from Bell Jet Rangers to Eurocopter A-stars and even some Hueys. LAPD also has 3 known planes and 1 unspecified and undenied drone. Main Airship missions are flown out of downtown's Piper Tech center at the Hooper Heliport, located outside of Union Station . LAPD also houses air units at Van Nuys airport. At one time the LAPD also had a military submarine. Work Environment The LAPD has a 3 day-12 hour and 4 day-10 hour work week schedule. They have over 250 job assignments and each officer is eligible for such assignments after two years on patrol. LAPD Patrol Officers almost always work with a partner, unlike suburban departments surrounding Los Angeles , in which many departments deploy officers in one-officer units. Other departments use single officer patrol cars to maximize police presence, allowing a smaller amount of officers to patrol a larger area, while LAPD prefers to err on the side of caution. The department's training division has three facilities throughout the city, including Elysian Park , Ahmanson Recruit Training Center (Westchester) , and the Edward Davis Training Center (Granada Hills) . Limitations Throughout its modern history, the department has suffered from chronic underfunding and under-staffing. In comparison to most large cities, the LAPD has historically had one of the lowest ratios of police personnel to population served and thus the current chief, , and Dept. of General Services Office of Public Safety Police, which police city owned properties, parks, zoo, libraries, and convention center. Force composition During the Parker-Davis-Gates period, the LAPD was overwhelmingly white, and much of it lived outside of the city. In 1980, only 20% of the force was minority officers. {Link without Title} Simi Valley , the Ventura County suburb that later became infamous as the site of the state trial that immediately preceded the 1992 Los Angeles Riots , has long been home to a particularly large concentration of LAPD officers, almost all of them white. A 1994 ACLU study of officer's home zip codes, concluded that over 80% of police officers lived outside city boundaries.Newton, Jim. "ACLU Says 83% of Police Live Outside L.A." ''Los Angeles Times'' 29 March 1994: B1. Hiring quotas began to change this during the 1980s, but it was not until the Christopher Commission reforms that substantial numbers of black, Hispanic, and Asian officers began to join the force. Minority officers can be found in both rank-and-file and leadership positions in virtually all precincts, and the LAPD is starting to reflect the general population. As of 2002, 13.5% of the LAPD is black, 34.2% is Latino, and 6.9% is Asian or Pacific Islander. {Link without Title} The LAPD hired the first female police officer in the United States in 1910, Ms Alice Stebbins Wells. Since then, women have been a small, but growing part of the force. Up through the early 1970s, women were classified as "policewomen" on the LAPD. Through the 1950s, their duties generally consisted as working as matrons in the jail system, or dealing with troubled youths working in detective assignments. Rarely did they work any type of field assignment and they were not allowed to promote above the rank of sergeant. However, a lawsuit (Fanchon Blake) by a policewoman from that period instituted court ordered mandates that the Department begin actively hiring and promoting women police officers in its ranks. The Department eliminated the rank of "Policeman" from new hires at that time along with the rank of "Policewoman." Anyone already in those positions were grandfathered in, but any new hires were classified instead as "Police Officers" which continues to this day. In 2002, women made up 18.9% of the force. Women have made significant strides within the ranks of the Department since the days of the Fanchon Blake lawsuit. The highest ranking woman on the Department today is Assistant Chief Sharon Papa, who came to the LAPD as a commander from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Transit Police Department in 1997. Chief Papa was the last Chief of Police for the MTA. The LAPD also hired the first known black Police Officer in America. LAPD also had the first SWAT team (Special Weapons and Tactics) in America which was instituted in the mid 1960's in an effort to deal with threats from organized factions such as the Black Panther Party and other radical groups operating during that time. LAPD's SWAT team is considered by many in the business to be the premier unit of its kind. HISTORY See Also: History of the Los Angeles Police Department -LAPD's Headquarters]] The first specific Los Angeles Police Force was founded in 1853 as the Los Angeles Rangers, a volunteer force that assisted the existing County forces. The Rangers were soon succeeded by the Los Angeles City Guards, another volunteer group. Neither force was particularly efficient and Los Angeles became known for its violence, Gambling and " Vice ". Controversies The LAPD has been involved in a number of public controversies, most notably the infamous Rodney King beating and the subsequent 1992 Los Angeles riots. In 2004, pursuit suspect Stanley Miller was seen roughed up by eight LAPD officers from the Southeast Division when Officers used the excuse that he was fleeing from officers in Compton . Officer John Hatfield was seen kicking and hitting Miller multiple times. Four of the officers faced disciplinary action and Officer Hatfield was fired from the LAPD. No charges were filed and Miller was given $450,000. On May 1st, 2007, the LAPD reacted to May Day Marches in favor of illegal immigrant rights with what critics claim was excessive force, using nonlethal weaponry on reporters and demonstrators. The most notable incident was at MacArthur Park http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-media3may03,0,6704192.story?coll=la-home-headlines Leading up to this incident over the police radio, supervisors beyond field Sergeants gave specific orders and later gave mixed accounts in a news conference. Command staff ID's were heard giving METRO deployments to MacArthur park. On May 7th, 2007, at a news conference with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Commission President John Mack, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton announced changes to his command staff in an attempt to fix the problems. Deputy Chief Cayler "Lee" Carter, Commanding Officer of Operations-Central Bureau, was reverted to the rank of Commander. However, he was then assigned to his home with pay. On May 8, 2007, Chief Bratton announced that Cmdr. Sergio G. Diaz would replace Carter at the Police Commission meeting in order to appease the Hispanics. Additionally, Commander Louis Gray, Assistant Commanding Officer of Operations-Central Bureau, was reassigned to the Office of Operations. During the recent May 1, 2007 illegal immigrant rally demonstration at MacArthur Park, Carter served as the highest-ranking officer present. Gray was the second highest-ranking officer on scene and was tired of his Officers being hit by bottles and rocks by the crowd. BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSIONERS The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners is a five-member body of appointed officials which oversees the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The board functions like a corporate Board Of Directors and is responsible for setting policies for the department and overseeing its operations. LAPD Operations Currently, the Los Angeles Police Department is organized as follows:
Organizational Notes
DEMOGRAPHICS
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics, 2000: Data for Individual State and Local Agencies with 100 or More Officers LAPD CHIEFS OF POLICE THE LAPD IN POPULAR MEDIA The LAPD is represented in the popular media. Several prominent representations include ''Dragnet'', ''Crash'', and the ''The Shield'' series. The independently iconic television series '' Dragnet '', with LAPD Detective Joe Friday as the primary character, was the first major media representation of the department. Real LAPD operations inspired Jack Webb to create the series and close cooperation with department officers let him make it as realistic as possible, including authentic police equipment and sound recording on-site at the police station.
It has also been the subject of several novels, probably the most famous of which is '''', September 19, 1997. ''L.A. Confidential'' is part of a modern trend of more negative portrayals of the department that started with the Rodney King Beating And Subsequent Riots . The television series '' The Shield '' is but one example. The Closer is another contemporary depiction of the work of the detectives of LAPD. SEE ALSO
FOOTNOTES References
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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