Public Administration Service

The principal author of a manpower study for the Los Angeles Police Department, declaring that his work has been misinterpreted, said this week that police response to emergency calls is "uniformly long" citywide--not skewed in favor of affluent areas, as previously reported. He also said he found that police typically took 9.2 minutes to arrive at an emergency anywhere in the city, not 12.3 minutes, which was widely reported as one of his key findings when the the study was released last week.

The principal author of a manpower study for the Los Angeles Police Department, declaring that his work has been misinterpreted, said this week that police response to emergency calls is "uniformly long" citywide--not skewed in favor of affluent areas, as previously reported. He also said he found that police typically took 9.2 minutes to arrive at an emergency anywhere in the city, not 12.3 minutes, which was widely reported as one of his key findings when the the study was released last week.

The Inglewood Police Department should increase the number of officers assigned to patrol by 11, a 13% increase that would improve crime prevention and response time, according to a recently completed consultant's study. Public Administration Service, a Virginia-based consulting firm, began the $65,000 study of police manpower and deployment a year ago at the direction of the City Council. The 200-plus-page final report will be presented to the council Tuesday for discussion.

The Public Administration Service, which conducted the Los Angeles Police Department deployment study, is a 54-year-old private, nonprofit consulting firm based in McLean, Va., that specializes in analyzing state and local government problems and recommending solutions. Since 1970, the firm has done more than 80 studies on police departments, mostly small ones like Sterling Heights, Mich., Boca Raton, Fla., and Norfolk, Neb.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously endorsed a Police Department plan to revamp its deployment practices so that patrol officers are capable of responding to emergencies within seven minutes, while still having 40% of their time free for patrol. The endorsement means that council members are "committing themselves to supporting resources we need" to achieve the goals, Assistant Police Chief Robert L. Vernon said.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley plans to add 250 officers to the undermanned Los Angeles Police Department. They would expand the force to 7,750 members, a historic high. Every additional officer would be welcome, but hundreds more are needed to control crime among the city's large and diverse population and to patrol its sprawling territory.

The City of Los Angeles now has two sets of figures on how long it takes its police officers to answer a call for help. The city can waste precious days and weeks fighting over which version is right. Or its people and its politicians can do something about the fact that as of today they need at least 650 more officers to deal with crime in all parts of the city. Of the two courses, only facing up to the need for a bigger force makes sense.

Black and Latino leaders of two influential community groups called on Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on Monday to immediately heed a study released last week that would scrap the way patrol officers are deployed and assign more of them to inner-city neighborhoods.

The Los Angeles Police Department said Monday that it has shaved nearly a minute off the time it takes to respond to an emergency. It typically took 8.1 minutes to respond to an emergency during the first six months of this year, compared to 8.9 minutes during the first six months of last year, the Police Department said. Police defined an emergency as a life-threatening or potentially life-threatening situation.

A study commissioned by the Los Angeles Police Department concludes that it takes officers an average of about a minute and a half longer to respond to emergency calls in the largely minority South-Central area of the city than it takes in the largely Anglo San Fernando Valley.