L.A. Cops Hindered by Ridiculous Overtime Rules
There is a remarkable documentary series on the A&E television network called The First 48. Each episode follows a team of homicide detectives from the moment they are summoned to a murder scene and for the ensuing 48 hours. As each installment in the series opens, the viewer is reminded of this truism of murder investigations: if no solid leads are developed within those first two days following the killing, the chances of ever solving the crime are cut in half.
As you watch the series you soon realize that homicide detectives very often go without sleep, sometimes even for days. They process crime scenes, examine evidence, and track down and interview witnesses and suspects, most of whom are revealed to be, at least initially, less than forthright in their responses to questioning. On an episode I watched recently, for example, detectives in Louisville investigated a shooting in which a man was killed and two others, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded by someone who opened fire on a house with an assault rifle. The victims were struck as they lay in bed asleep.
Through the detectives’ dogged persistence during that initial 48-hour period, they identified and arrested a suspect, then recovered the apparent murder weapon in the trunk of one of his cars. As most of them do, the episode closed with the admonishment that although the suspect had been charged, he was innocent until proven guilty. To which most viewers probably said, “Yeah, right.”
It is that kind of perseverance that is the hallmark of homicide detectives, a trait that becomes apparent as you watch them at work in Louisville, Dallas, Miami, and several other cities across the country. Los Angeles is not one of those cities, but if it were, you might see a scenario similar to the following:
LAPD detectives are called to the scene of a murder at two in the morning. They find no one at the crime scene who admits to having witnessed the murder, but there are several people they believe to be withholding information. Through skillful and persistent interviewing of these reluctant witnesses, they come up with a first name and a description of a likely suspect. After many hours of running down dead ends, the detectives at last identify a suspect and determine that evidence at the murder scene links him to the crime. They obtain an arrest warrant for him, and they are at his front door poised to make the grab when a detective’s cell phone rings.
The caller is their lieutenant, who in no uncertain terms orders them not to make the arrest and to return at once to the police station. When they inquire as to the reason for this asinine instruction, they are informed that they have exceeded their overtime allotment for the month and, as the city is facing a dire financial picture, they should go home and come back tomorrow to make the arrest during their normal duty hours. Or, even more incredibly, they might be told to take a week or two off so as to lower their total of accrued compensatory time and reduce the attendant financial burdens to the city’s budget.
That would make for some pretty sorry television, wouldn’t it? Viewers and sponsors alike would be switching to Dancing With the Stars in droves. As it happens, it makes for some pretty sorry police work, too, but it is nonetheless only a slightly exaggerated picture of current conditions in the Los Angeles Police Department.
On Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported on the sorry state of the LAPD budget, illustrating it through the case of Detective Nate Kouri, described in the article as “one of the LAPD’s most productive homicide investigators.” In January, Kouri was ordered to stop working for six weeks in order to bring his accrued overtime down to an acceptable level and to prevent him from adding to it as he picked up new cases. Kouri, assigned to South Bureau Homicide, investigates murders that occur in the Southeast Division, in South Central Los Angeles, one of the city’s most violence-plagued areas. As of April 10, there had been 14 homicides reported in Southeast this year, placing it second among the LAPD’s 21 patrol divisions. Nine of those 14 murders remain unsolved, due in no small part to the fact that the 11 detectives assigned to work them were ordered to take off 700 hours in February alone, a month when they picked up five new killings.
“That is horrible compared to our typical [clearance] rates,” Det. Sal LaBarbera, the supervisor for the Southeast homicide squad, told Times writer Joel Rubin. “All of those cases are solvable. None of them are mysteries. A few of them would likely already be solved, if I could just let my guys loose to work.”
LAPD officers and detectives typically work ten- and twelve-hour watches, and until recently, most were compensated in cash when they worked beyond their normal hours or appeared in court while off duty. But the decline in tax revenue that has accompanied the recession has necessitated giving officers compensatory time off instead. Sadly, the habits of the city’s criminals are less circumscribed by such fiscal considerations, and they have shown little inclination to cooperate in municipal efforts to save money.
They insist, for example, on committing crimes at such hours that require patrol officers and detectives to work late in order to investigate them. And when they are arrested, they seldom have the decency to surrender in the first hours of a given watch, thereby resulting in police overtime to book them into jail and process the reams of required paperwork.
And, as officers build up overtime, it doesn’t take long before they are required to take time off. Officers are allowed to bank up to 400 hours, but terms of their current contract allow commanders to order anyone whose overtime balance exceeds 250 hours to take as many days off as required to bring it to down to that level. And of course it is those officers and detectives who are most effective in reducing crime — those who make the most arrests and the most court appearances — who accumulate the most overtime, so their absence from the streets is felt all the more strongly. And, owing to a hiring freeze in effect for over a year, nearly a quarter of the LAPD’s 4,000 civilian positions are vacant, so police officers are often pulled from field duty to fill the jobs ordinarily performed by those missing civilians.
The latest crime and arrest figures portend a grim future for Los Angeles. Though crime has continued the decline that began back in 2002 (Part I crime is down 8.5 percent this year), the number of murders in the city has ticked up for the first time since 2004, and this is before the summer months, when violent crime is usually at its highest. So far this year, seven of the LAPD’s 21 patrol divisions have seen increases in their homicides, with Newton and 77th Street Divisions, in South Central L.A., up a dismaying 87 and 66 percent, respectively.
Even more ominous are the arrest numbers. Citywide, arrests are down 8.5 percent this year, with only seven patrol divisions posting increases. Of the four divisions with the highest number of homicides, all have seen a dramatic fall in arrests in 2010. And the LAPD’s gang details, which bear the responsibility of monitoring and deterring the city’s most violent street criminals, have made 28 percent fewer arrests this year when compared to the same period in 2009. When the city’s gangsters are allowed to go unchecked like this, a rise in crime is all but inevitable.
Regrettably, no one in city government seems to have an answer to this, and new LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has been handed a festering mess. Like the state of California, whose financial outlook is every bit as bleak, Los Angeles has long been governed by fiscal incompetents. One could wander through City Hall for days without encountering a single individual whose intelligence or financial acumen would inspire faith in the city’s future. Unless and until this changes, it appears that Los Angeles may be in the initial stages of a Detroit-like dystopian death spiral, with anyone with the means to flee the city doing so, leaving behind a shrinking tax base even as demand for police and other municipal services increase.
In 1992 there were 1,097 murders reported in Los Angeles, the highest total ever. The number has fallen more or less steadily since. Until now. There were 314 murders reported in 2009, but if the city doesn’t get its fiscal house in order and find a way to keep the LAPD in business, even 1992 may someday be remembered as the good old days.
“Sadly, the habits of the city’s criminals are less circumscribed by such fiscal considerations, and they have shown little inclination to cooperate in municipal efforts to save money.”
I can’t disagree with your characterization of the politicians in LA. I live close enough to read it on the front pages of the LA Times every morning on the way to work (btw, I don’t buy that rag, I merely see it on sale). As to how to respond to the situation, well, cutting back on less essential spending is surely called for. That said, I’d make another suggestion – Vermont style concealed carry for all Californians, not just government employees. No public employee is going to defend your life as well as you are. And besides, when seconds count the police are only minutes away. Shall issue concealed carry works fine in 37 states, and its an idea whose time has come in California. Maybe you ought to get behind that proposition, Mr. Dunphy, because LA voters and LA politicians are still in denial.
If they stop paying overtime, a cop should keep on working just like me and millions of other non-hourly employees had to do for all our lives.
Enough already of the mewling from so-called ‘first responders’ like cops, firemen, teachers — all of whom arrive slower than speeding bullets, spreading flames or ADD students. Suck it up Sniveling Servants, like everyone else has had to do even during normal economic times!
The few that would “suck it up” can’t because of outmoded union rules. The rest are too blind to understand they’ve been being paid with someone elses’ money and the other guy lost his job and his house and moved back to Arkansas last year.
Yea, like I believe you work long hours without pay. Get over your self and be real. People work to get job satisfaction and/or a pay check. It is called work, not play.
Federal Law prohibits oficers from working overtime without being paid overtime. In spite of that, there were tens of thousands of hours worked anyway years ago. No the person would be fired. It’s not an option.
It’s is clear to me that the solution is for the cops to join the SEIU. That union delivers!
SEIU is run by a bunch of criminals….
I can think of a better way for LA police to use their time, and that is to round up and deport millions of illegal aliens. This would no doubt reduce the number of murders and other crimes.
That would make for some pretty sorry television, wouldn’t it?
Actually, I think it would make for some pretty great television. I’d put it on one of the major networks on prime time, in fact.
Readers unfamiliar with the LAPD are notified that it has been seriously unstaffed for about the last century. The LA city government has had a clear policy for about a hundred years of underfunding, and understaffing, its police department relative to other major cities. It has, until recently, compensated for this to some degree by paying for vast amounts of overtime.
But LA, like most California cities, has run into horrible budget problems during the current recession. It really can’t pay for the police overtime it had been paying, and now its consistent underfunding of the LAPD is biting the City bigtime because there simply is no slack to take up.
The problem, Jack, is that cops work for citizens who elect idiots to be leaders. [Sound familiar, anyone?] And in spite of what Banjo sez, cops have very strong unions. The idiot city leaders have never found the courage to tell a special interest “no”, and the union leaders have never had the wisdom to tell their members, “If we want to protect our future we need to cutback our demands a little”
There is no denying emergency responders earn their keep, and more. The problem is other municipal employees probably do NOT but are still paid bloated salaries [for today] tied to those of risk takers. And when the economy went south two years or so ago none of the responders or rank-and-file employees “manned up” to take a smaller bite from the public trough. Ergo, the cash well is dry and LA is now facing either bankruptcy or massive employee layoffs.
So the overtime rules you are bitching about, Jack, may be stupid and non-productive, but they are the very same rules your own union negotiated. So in this case you are being a trifle disingenuous. Your city is slowly flushing itself down the toilet. Your post reflects just how far down that drain it’s gone. Your voters asked for it and now they have it. The solved murder rate is going downhill from now on, faster and faster. Imo you need to live with it and figure out how to survive, rather than waste your time bitching about it here on PJM.
RKV makes a good point. To improve public safety its time to bring back CCW to LA and the rest of CA.
A “century” may be stretching it a little, closer to 70 years I think, but Tom Holsinger is spot on about perenial under-staffing. I pinpoint its nexus to the LAPD rank-and-file adapting a universal “blue curtain” culture in the mid-1960′s. What they originated because they needed protection from abusive commanders, became a “license to fudge the facts” and [foreseeably] encouraged a culture that resulted in far too many abuses of justice and citizens. From my position at a comparable agency in an outlying jurisdiction I watched in dismay as Angeleno citizens [and voters] lost respect for enforcers at the very time they needed them the most. Ethics and reputation, once lost, are never easy to rebuild. Despite the best efforts of thousands of dedicated officers, that culture continues today and the bad apples within still erode away the public trust.
and the bad apples within still erode away the public trust.
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Another way in which unions contribute to the death of any organization they attach themselves to.
How many social workers have had their hours cut back?
How many city hall buearocrats have had their hours cut back?
This is the strategy that govt always uses. Cut the most vital services first. Then when the citizens complain, tell them that the only way to get their services back is to support yet another tax increase.
Just let it go, Jack. Move to Ventura County with the rest and let LA rot. I work for the city of San Francisco. I, like thousands of others, am forced to pay SEIU “dues” even though I am not a member of the union. I refuse, categorically, to work overtime no matter how serious the issue. I will leave my desk at 4 p.m. regardless of the issue. If I don’t, I am forced to submit 9 pages of overtime paperwork for which I am paid six weeks later. Not worth the effort.
Why don’t they offer Compensation time which after so many hours of overtime have been reached they are given time off with pay on a one to one basis. When I was in the U.S. Navy when we did work overtime we were offered Compensation time and it worked pretty well. You just got the same old paycheck as always but were given extra liberty or leave time (don’t remember if you could sell it). It is a start though and doesn’t cost more that way!
According to the article, that is what they are doing. The problem is the amount of comp time is growing too big for some officers, so they are being ordered to take the comp time.
Bill, take a look at L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City by John Buntin, for a good history of the LAPD. Perennial understaffing of the LAPD froze into policy in the 1920′s because motor vehicles facilitated police coverage. LA Noir also a hoot in detailing the career of mobster Mickey Cohen, who put on a mob fund-raiser for Israel, at the behest of Ben Hecht, during the Israeli war of independence. Only it was for the Stern Gang on the grounds that us Jewish gangsters oughta stick together.
Thanks, Tom. Will do. I was around in the 30′s but can always learn from history.
Comp time, unfortunately, is no longer legal in most cases. While I support a robust and fully staffed police department, I wonder if they too aren’t going to have accept the new budget reality facing most local governments. And in a staff as large as LA PD, I wonder if a little created scheduling wouldn’t minimize these problems. Sometimes it sounds like police and fire fighters believe they have a constitutional right to unlimited overtime.
How much of both the sworn and civilian staff could be saved if they applied for and got a decent 287g program plus the federal funds to fully implement it? Saltherrings’ 60% right. Its like when my mom made my aunt and uncle paint our house in exchange for some tide-over cash. Bad thing would be if Mayor Villar actually went through with that plan and the “historic turnaround” pushed him into higher office someday.
Also, LAPD is easily the most “physically fit” of all our major urban police departments, even with an influx of folk with historically bad diets.
Your point being………???
Jack, quit the whine Dude!,Your union did this,Don’t you have any guts without your gun? I mean guts enough to stand up without a union.Public employee unions,why do you need to organize against your own Government? Your just trying to scare Angelenos like a typical Union Commercial we see on the local TV channels,grow up,
Bob in Ontario Ca
Lyn, not so much a “constitutional right” to overtime but definitely a resistance to change and “creative solutions”. Developing a squad complex – where several bodies jointly tackle critical problems – almost always ensures the development of a culture where similar problems can never be taken on my just one or two individuals. “That’s not the way we do it”. Ergo, eventually 20% of the squad produce 80% of the work and that becomes the ‘norm’. When bad times eventually hit none of the non-producers is every found to be expendable. The solution, of course – and this comes straight from public school districts – is to promote the non-producers beyond their capabilities. This makes everyone happy and solves the problem, wink! wink!.
Well, we wouldn’t want them to be hindered, would we? As is constantly repeated on this stie, the founders imagined a group of political elites and their policing bodies free from hindrance in order to guarantee the greatest liberties…or something like that. I used to know how this went before I started reading Pajamas Media regularly.
Who cares if Gang-banger A shot Gang-banger B? That’s the usual scenario in Los Angeles. LAPD should wink, stamp those cases “NHI” and spend their valuable time solving crimes against innocent people.
One would think with all the “Seatbelt” tickets being handed out the PD would be in the black. Sad to think how many laws are created to fill budget gaps. Totally innocent civilians being hunted down while murderers go free. Welcome to America.
H, you realize the LAPD is part of the city’s general fund right? The LAPD is not run like the DWP. The LAPD does not generate any funds.
why doesn’t the city start paying the reserve officers it has at it’s disposal? Currently, the city has over 700 Reserve Police Officers, of which at least 250 are street certified Level 1 and 2 patrol officers. Currently, they are paid a stipend of $50.00 PER MONTH (for at least 2 shifts)!! I’d be willing to be if the city started paying them some minimal amount ( say 10 bucks an hour ), the reserves would probably work twice as often.
Other cities ( Brea, Costa Mesa, etc) Pay their Reserve Officers…. Why doesn’t L.A. look into it, at least until the fiscal crises is over??
“And the LAPD’s gang details, which bear the responsibility of monitoring and deterring the city’s most violent street criminals, have made 28 percent fewer arrests this year when compared to the same period in 2009. When the city’s gangsters are allowed to go unchecked like this, a rise in crime is all but inevitable.”
I would hazard a guess that this is due to the city’s gang units decreasing in size by at least 28% over the past year due to the new financial disclosure rules. Arrests will decrease another 99% between now and March ’11 when those officers who were grandfathered in for 2 years leave the units.
If I understand Jack’s point, it is that criminals run free unnecessarily due to the City’s agreement with the union that allows officers to be sent home instead of being paid for the overtime they earn. Sounds awful and unbelievable in a City that is already under-policed. That’s what is happening though!
This silly and dangerous practice of sending officers home is in full effect. But it is due to the compromise built into the union backed Memorandum of Understanding that was approved by a large majority of the union membership (the very same police officers and detectives made to go home to avoid overtime cash payments). It is opined that in these tough fiscal times the union membership approved these uncommon measures to demonstrate to the City leadership and other organized labor groups (SEIU) that the members of the LAPD understood the seriousness of the financial crisis and would sacrifice along with other City workers. A gesture of goodwill, if you will. This overtime rule is now of great concern to all-and it should be-with the summer months approaching.
The union membership and the City both were short-sided and bear the responsibility for under-staffing critical spots in field operations. The community and the police officers in the field deserve as many officers out there protecting and serving as possible, despite the gloomy budget picture. Community members deserve cops for all calls and issues in a timely manner and conversely cops deserve deployment of enough officers for adequate back-up and their own safety. Now the LAPD is about to find out exactly how its’ peers in the LAFD are coping with their loss of overtime and one unintended victim is going to be public safety. When there is tragedy, and it’s coming, due to not enough police or fire, litigation will be final measure of how much the self-insured City of Los Angeles actually saved by cutting two of the most professional public safety agencies in the country to dangerously low levels to save a buck initially. The cuts are possibly too low and already at unacceptable levels. Less cops, black and whites, SWAT officers, firefighters, EMS workers, rescue ambulances, and fire engines to respond to emergencies in progress mean longer response times in a city that has the worst traffic in the nation. If you are paying attention, you understand it is likely only a matter of time before the situation is untenable and it gets worse.
Jack, no one really listens to your opinions anymore. You hide behind a name, but I am sure you have never met with the chief to discuss your opinions. The overtime is the way it is because many of us abused the system when we did have cash. If a division has only 3 murders in one year, there is no reason for 3 detectives to be on call over the weekend earning cash while watching sports on TV. YES, LAPD pays out over $2million a year for detectives to sit at home on the weekends. IF the criminals are doing the crime at night, why don’t the detectives work at night. I do. The mentality that detectives should work court hours are from the past. Detectives should work a rotating schedule just like patrol.
Most homicide detectives, in my opinion, work homicide because of the OT. How many do you hear (when there was cash) about the greenie they put in for 15 ours “on that last scene”? Nuff said. Stop your whining Jack and why don’t you offer a solution instead of complaints.
The problem is not an under staffed police force nor is it the inability to work more overtime. The problem is very simply too many laws to enforce. If the government would simple pass and enforce laws only against acts that violate a person’s unalienable rights, current police forces would be more than adequate to handle the load. At a basic level, only the following should be crimes: murder, theft, destruction of property, assault/battery, kidnapping. Who exactly is being harmed by jaywalking, drug use, prostitution, gambling, speeding, selling lemonade, etc?
Maybe LA should just get their priorities straight.