For 140 years the Los Angeles Police Department has proudly served the
City of Los Angeles. As our yearlong anniversary festivities continue,
we dedicate the month of March to the legendary women of the LAPD.
This month, we celebrate their achievements and the contributions they
have made throughout the years. We pay homage to our pioneers: Alice
Stebbins Wells, the nation’s first policewoman, Terri Lincoln, the
Department’s first female command pilot, and Assistant Chief Sharon
Papa, the highest ranking female officer in the LAPD. And we pay
tribute to the selfless heroes who dedicated their lives to protect and
to serve: Tina Frances Kerbrat, the first female LAPD officer to die in
the line of duty, and most recently, Officer Spree Desha and injured
Officer Kristina Ripatti. We applaud these women for their
contributions and thank them for paving the way for future
generations. Each serves as an inspiration to female officers around
the world and is a significant and poignant part of the great legacy of
our Department.
2009 Gang Initiatives
At a recent news conference, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and I announced
our 2009 Gang Initiatives. Over the past year alone, thanks in large
part to your hard work, gang homicides dropped 25% and gang crime
declined overall by 10%. This year, I have no doubt that you will be
able to continue the trend. Chief Earl Paysinger and Charlie Beck have
set a stretch goal of a further 15% overall reduction in gang crimes.
Nobody knows better than you the negative impact of gangs that for far
too long have plagued our City, terrorized our neighborhoods and
instilled fear in our residents. In 2009, we will partner with our
Federal, State, County and local law enforcement agencies to create a
seamless web thoroughly committed and focused on dramatically impacting
the violence caused by those gangs whose violent act draws attention
and coordinated law enforcement response. If they stick their heads
up, if they raise their profile and levels of violence, we will move
quickly to arrest and incarcerate them. Building on the trust we
continually earn from the communities we serve, we will increasingly
work together with many in those communities to keep control of the
streets. You have shown with your dramatic positive impact on crime
and gang activities that cops count, police matter.
Prevention
This year will also see a strengthening of the City’s prevention
efforts. Mayor Villaraigosa has pledged to direct resources to the
communities most in need. From the expansion of the highly successful
Summer Night Lights program to juvenile intervention programs and other
alternative options for at-risk youth, we will help parents and
caregivers recognize the early warning signs of gang involvement and
provide them viable options to redirect their children away from a life
of crime.
Intervention
As you have heard many in law enforcement say before, we cannot arrest
our way out of gangs. Suppression is often necessary, but suppression
alone will not ultimately succeed. Intervention is crucial to the
rescue of those already involved and is an extremely valuable tool in
the reduction of crime. For the first time, under the control of the
Mayor, the intervention, prevention and many of the re-entry strategies
will be directed and coordinated in his office. Gang intervention
training will be provided to officers who deal with gang crime as part
of their normal assignment and a supervisor in each geographic bureau
will be designated as the liaison between the officers of the
respective bureau and a gang intervention agency.
The Department will work to support Reverend Jeff Carr and the Office
of Gang Reduction and Youth Development to ensure intervention workers
receive timely and accurate information whenever a violent gang
incident occurs. Reverend Carr has made great strides in bridging the
credibility gap for gang intervention workers and he will have the
Department’s full cooperation and support in the development of the
Gang Intervention Academy.
Suppression
Based on our significant success to date, we know that we can
significantly reduce gang activity through innovative and effective law
enforcement strategies. By concentrating on coordination of
strategies, tactics, resources, and improved timely intelligence, we
can expand the lines of communication with our law enforcement
colleagues. The blurring of jurisdictional lines, which used to be a
disadvantage for law enforcement, is now a significant and intentional
advantage. Federal, State and local agencies will work together to
determine not only what we need for a successful prosecution, but also
which jurisdiction can get the toughest sentence. Other local police
departments such as the Los Angeles Unified School Police, for example,
can be of particular assistance in areas such as intelligence
gathering, infrastructure protection, and truancy enforcement. Every
agency will have a role.
Through coordination comes efficiency. Not only do we continually look
to improve outside relationships, we took a good look in the mirror and
figured out how we could do it better from the inside. Earlier this
year, the Department combined Gang Operations Support Division and
Narcotics Division to create the Gang and Narcotics Division.
Recognizing the link between gangs, guns and drugs, this new Division,
under the command of Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, will unite 300
detectives specifically focused on the reduction of narcotics and gun
trafficking.
I also recently promoted Michael Williams to the newly designated
Strategic Operations Commander position under the Office of
Operations. In as much as over 60 % of gang crime occurs at night,
Commander Williams will be assigned during the evening hours and will
work with RACR to identify gang trends or incidents as they occur and
move resources quickly throughout the City to address them.
This year, you will see the continuation of successful programs such as
the Top Ten Gang Members and Top-Targeted Street Gangs. We will
continue to work with the Mayor and City Attorney’s office to seek
permanent injunctions against the most violent gangs and expand our
Community Law Enforcement and Recovery sites and Gang Reduction and
Youth Development Zones as necessary. In addition, the Department will
conduct COMPSTAT inspections of every Department entity responsible for
Gang Enforcement and will focus a part of each COMPSTAT session on the
reduction of gang crime.
In the coming months, an additional 400 officers will receive
specialized training in gang history, culture and trends and each of
the Area Gang Enforcement Details will have the ability to assign
additional personnel to gang enforcement duties as needed. Assistant
Chief Paysinger has tasked each Operations Bureau Chief to design a set
of proposals that will address gang problems specific to their
individual commands. This will allow each Bureau the opportunity to
modify their gang prevention approach in accordance to their area’s
particular needs.
Understanding the critical nature of timely intelligence gathering,
Area Watch Commanders will now have the ability to share gang crime
information in “real time” with their counterparts in all geographic
areas throughout the City through the use of a Secure Gang Blog. As
the program expands, qualifying outside agencies will also be allowed
access.
Not only will we target the gangs’ neighborhoods, we will also go after
their vehicles. The Violent Crime Motor Enforcement Team will be a
cadre of 30 motor officers deployed in high crime areas throughout the
City dedicated to the enforcement of vehicle code violations, to help
reduce the number of drive by shootings and other major assaults that
occur in gang-infested areas. They will continually be supplied with
information from RACR relative to gang vehicles used in crimes and
known to be in possession of gang members.
In 2009, the Department will also work aggressively to reduce gang
graffiti. Assistant Commanding Officer of Detective Bureau, Commander
Patrick Gannon, will have additional new responsibilities as
coordinator for the Department’s anti-graffiti efforts.
We will also actively engage more with our communities. Where gangs
have relied on fear to keep people from talking to the police, we will
offer more ways for people to safely report crimes anonymously either
through cell phone texting, the internet or toll free calls. The
Community will also be asked to help us get more guns off the streets.
In partnership with the Mayor and the Sheriff’s Department, the
Department will assist with a Gifts for Guns program. At strategic
times throughout the year, gift cards will be exchanged for guns “no
questions asked.” The Sheriff’s Department had great success with this
program in 2008.
Re-Entry
When a gang member wants out of a life of crime, the Department and the
Office of the Mayor will be there to provide that opportunity. We will
continue to support the Office of Gang Reduction and Youth
Development’s initiatives and will work on the expansion of re-entry
programs already being conducted at Operations-South Bureau and other
parts of the City.
The Department will continue to convene the Executive Ad Hoc Committee
on Gangs as a means to evaluate our collaborative gang reduction
efforts. Decision-makers from all our law enforcement partners will
continually examine and refine enforcement initiatives to ensure
program effectiveness.
The LAPD’s 2009 Gang Initiatives are the most comprehensive effort ever
in the history of this Department and will ultimately serve as the
national model for how to deal with gangs and gang violence, how to
keep them from growing and getting started in the first place.
I have no doubt that you, the men and women of this Department, will
continue to make a difference in the communities we protect and serve.
Gangs are a way of life in LA, and we will never totally get rid of
them. But we are sending each and every one of them this message…if
you choose to continue to engage in violence, the LAPD and its partners
will go after you – effectively, efficiently and relentlessly. How do
we know we can reduce their violence and their impact? Just look at
the reduction in gang violence over the last several years. That
didn’t just happen. You made it happen.
Hollywood Homicide Detectives conducted an investigation and have determined that the suspect is the victim's 19 year-old estranged son, Christopher Francis Scarano. He is described as a White male, blond hair, hazel eyes, 6 feet tall, and weighs about 180 pounds. He was last seen wearing a black or grey hooded sweatshirt with a possible green design on the front or back and blue jeans.