Participating in sports such as football, weightlifting and boxing has long been part of the culture within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. But deputies have recently been playing some new games -- on-duty enforcement competitions that have police watchers across the country crying foul.
One recent competition, described in an internal Sheriff's Department e-mail obtained by The Times, was called "Operation Any Booking." The object was to arrest as many people as possible within a specific 24-hour period.
Other one-day competitions have included "Operation Vehicle Impound," a contest aimed at seizing as many cars as possible. And another challenged deputies to see how many gang members and other suspected criminals could be stopped and questioned.
The prize for winning was nothing more than "bragging rights," said Lt. James Tatreau, who helped organize the events that involved teams of deputies patrolling the southeast Los Angeles cities of Lakewood, Bellflower, Paramount, Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens. The station is one of 23 that make up the nation's largest sheriff's department.
"It's just a friendly competition to have a little fun out here," Tatreau said. It was Tatreau who sent the e-mail about the booking contest Aug. 15. Tatreau said he viewed the games, which began in July, as a morale booster for overworked deputies who, because of staffing shortages, are required to work four overtime shifts a month.
But police accountability experts, civil libertarians and defense attorneys condemned the practice, saying that it trivialized traumatic encounters such as arrests and having a car impounded, and raised questions about deputies' motives in taking such actions.
Hubert Williams, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Foundation, which promotes innovative policing strategies, called the competitions "highly problematic and inappropriate."
"The arrest is one of the most potent tools in the possession of law enforcement and should be used with great thought," Williams said. "It's not a competition or a game."
Others, including Los Angeles County Public Defender Michael P. Judge, worried that the games might also prompt deputies to make illegitimate arrests to boost their statistics.
"Certainly, it calls into question whether there was a legitimate reason to book any of the people who were booked during the time of the competition," Judge said.
