Notes from the January 22, 2013 Weekly Police Commission Meeting

• Police Commission Andrea Ordin said the MLK Day breakfast event held over the weekend was very inspiring and moving.

• Police Commissioner Robert Saltzman thanked the Department in regards to the MLK Day breakfast event and parade.  He was grateful for the opportunity to ride in the parade and said the overall event was very gratifying. 

• Police Commissioner Richard Drooyan thanked the Chief for putting together the MLK Day event and praised fellow Commissioner John Mack for his moving remarks as the keynote speaker at the event.

• Police Chief Charlie Beck thanked all of those who participated and attended the MLK Day event. He policed South LA for most of his career so he felt an appreciation for the area.  He also said the Department currently has 10,010 sworn police officers and 2,871 civilian employees.

• The verbal presentation and update from the Commanding Officer and Community Police Advisory Board (C-PAB) representative regarding community initiated problem solving, crime strategies, and other programs and goals within the Harbor Area was continued to a later date.

• The Department’s verbal presentation and discussion relative to the current status of the backlog of latent fingerprints was given by Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese.  Chief Albanese informed the Board the latent print section was down in personnel numbers.  The section currently has 67 employees where ideal personnel numbers should have them at 96.  He said the Department has not made any progress on the backlog from 2010-11, and the 2012 backlog currently stands at 1,353 cases yet to be analyzed.  Chief Albanese then indicated the station has the capacity to analyze 380 cases per month but receives, on average, 525 new cases per month.  He then indicated all violent crime cases are analyzed with 10 high priority property crime cases from each area division analyzed per month as well.

• The Department’s report, dated January 4, 2013, relative to the approval of request for proposal for performance auditing training was approved.

Comments

[CITIZEN]

Hey chief, "CANCEL ANYMORE TICKETS LATELY"?

[FTO speaking up!]

The other day I ran into an officer who I haven't seen for a long time walking with several documents. He stated that he was on his way to PAB fighting to keep this job. I knew him as a role model officer and could see in his eyes his dispair. I am approaching 17 years all in streets and have a problem with the way things are currenly operating. Supervision is status quo and mediocre at best. Many are waiting to retire and many do not care like the few left. I hope he keeps his job maybe if we had more supervisors for every 10 officers in patrol operations we would not have to fire offices. Not say these huge frivolous lawsuits. We cannot sacrifice first-line supervision.

[Ed O'Shea]

FTO speaking up! I'm with you my friend. The department doesn't have much light showing, with respect to your 1 supervisor per every 10 officers. Most of the officers on the current Sergeants list will do nothing but exacerbate the status quo problems, because they have ZERO time on the job themselves. The department NEEDS to re-due the promotions prerequisites to include no less than 10 years in an OPERATIONAL patrol assignment. Far to many less than qualified and incompetent officers, become less than qualified and incompetent supervisors! And we keep promoting them and making the service we provide our bosses (The Community) sub-par at best. They sure do promote a bunch of command staff though....Cannot miss promoting your buddies. And the police commission is supposed to make sure the things you and I have outlined are NOT happening. They have become mostly a joke lately. But hey, let them keep promoting under the status quo antiquated guidelines.. and they can keep getting sued, and loosing, because they have INCOMPETENT "Managers" not a professional police department, with qualified leaders. Not many people have much respect for supervision anymore.... And for GOOD reason! It used to be that you may not have liked a certain supervisor, but you respected them... Not anymore! There are very few worth their salt!