LAPD Trims Special Units to Beef Up Street Patrols : Police: Shift in priorities by Chief Williams has meant curtailing some effective crime-fighting programs.

As the Los Angeles Police Department copes with attrition and rushes to put more officers on city streets, it has been forced to disband some of its most effective crime-fighting units, including programs that corralled thieves, confiscated stolen property and tracked down fugitives and major drug dealers.

The cuts reflect the shrinking ranks and the change in priorities from former Chief Daryl F. Gates to Chief Willie L. Williams. Where Gates championed specialized units, Williams has emphasized the need to boost the department’s visible street presence in order to fight and deter crime.

But the shifts, especially at a time when the department’s ranks are dwindling, have not come cheaply, weakening the department’s ability to combat some types of crime. Although Williams concedes that some units have been trimmed or eliminated, he and other commanders argue that the officers who walk beats, occupy patrol cars and respond to radio calls need top priority.

“What people have to understand is that those special units come out of black-and-whites,” Williams said in a recent interview. “Plainclothes officers and narcotics come out of black-and-whites. Officers who investigate graffiti, abandoned vehicles, abandoned homes, D.A.R.E. officers, narcotics, Internal Affairs, training, administrative, press relations--they all come out of the black-and-whites.”

But as more officers move to patrol duties, some specialized units are feeling the pinch. Among them:

* The Felony Fugitive Warrants Section, which tracked and arrested suspects fleeing from law enforcement, was trimmed from 15 officers to three. Those who remain coordinate warrants for the department, but serving them is a task that has shifted to overburdened detectives.

* The Gang Investigation Section, which gathered intelligence on gang activities throughout the city, was eliminated. Its dozen officers were transferred to other duties.

* The so-called Follow-Home Unit tracked robbers who targeted elderly people and followed them home to rob them. According to LAPD officials, the unit had taken aim at that brand of criminal and had quickly brought the problem under control. It was disbanded and its officers transferred.

* Drug Abuse Resistance Education, an LAPD invention that educates young people on the dangers of drugs, has been forced to cut so deeply that it no longer sends officers into high school and junior high school classrooms. Although D.A.R.E. leaders hope that the program will be beefed up soon, only elementary school students are now receiving it.

* LAPD narcotics operations have lost 54 officers out of about 400, with nearly all the cuts coming from officers assigned to investigating major traffickers. Units that combat street trafficking have seen a modest increase, but many officers who built large-scale investigations against major traffickers now are fighting street crime or doing other things.

“The public just won’t be seeing the huge seizures that we once reported,” said Deputy Chief Bayan Lewis, who oversees the LAPD’s Uniformed Headquarters Bureau. “They will see attention to the problem on their corner, but it’s hard to convince the lady who has a drug dealer in front of her house that we’re going after the guy who supplies the pounds.”

Assistant Chief Bernard Parks, who oversees LAPD operations, acknowledged that the loss of some specialized units has set back the LAPD’s efforts to combat certain types of crime. But he and other department leaders say the patrol ranks have become so depleted in recent years that drastic steps are necessary to return basic police services to the level needed to protect Los Angeles citizens.

“We’ve had to make some very tough choices,” said Parks, who oversees the LAPD’s operations. “You just don’t go from 8,400 (officers) to 7,600 without squeezing something.”

The losses have made an especially deep cut in the number of officers assigned to patrol duties. Today, that number is just over 1,000, meaning that only about 350 to 370 officers are available to respond to emergency calls at any given time.

In recent months, the cuts became so severe that the LAPD’s participation in joint task forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration came under scrutiny. Although the LAPD elected to remain a player in those task forces--which target gangs and drugs--commanders say it has become increasingly difficult for the Police Department to maintain those commitments.

“We’re struggling with that on a week-to-week basis,” Lewis said. “We’re getting so much bang for our buck in those units that we’re desperately trying to keep those officers there. But it’s tough.”

Although department officials bemoan all the cuts, many supervisors and rank-and-file officers point to the loss of two highly touted theft prevention groups as among the most painful.

One group, known within the department as the Storefront Unit, involved 15 to 20 police officers who set up a panel truck and a fake storefront and posed as fences for stolen property. In one nine-month stretch, the unit recovered about $3 million worth of property, returning 95% of it to its owners.

The unit never had a shooting or a personnel complaint, and its officers were commended for their initiative.

Today, the unit is disbanded, its officers reluctantly scattered to various tasks.

“This was a highly trained group of officers, employing good tactics,” said Deputy Chief Robert S. Gil, the commanding officer in the Central area. “It’s one of those things we’d dearly like to keep, but the more we try to get people in the streets, the more we’re going to have to give up somewhere else.”

Similarly, a group of detectives and officers known as the Organized Theft Unit racked up an impressive string of arrests and recovered huge quantities of property in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The unit brought together about a dozen police officers and detectives, who initially focused on a series of distraction thefts plaguing merchants at the Los Angeles Jewelry Mart. Over time, the unit expanded its operations, tracking theft rings that were hijacking trucks and stealing all manner of merchandise.

Chris Krist, a detective who worked with the unit, said the group arrested 167 suspects in its first 15 months. By 1992, Krist said, it had arrested 537 suspects and recovered $2.5 million in property.

Grateful merchants praised the unit’s work: Private donors supplied radios and other equipment, and the Jewelers’ Security Alliance presented the officers with a plaque.

But LAPD commanders said cuts in the overall force and the need to beef up patrol operations made the Organized Theft Unit a luxury. It was disbanded last year.

“Nobody had expertise like we had,” Krist said. “But now the department wants patrol. To get it, they’re willing to break up a very effective unit.”

Despite such criticisms, Williams’ approach enjoys strong support within and outside the department.

The Christopher Commission, which reviewed LAPD practices after the Rodney G. King beating, recommended beefing up the department’s patrol force. And Mayor Richard Riordan was elected largely on a promise to put thousands of additional officers on the streets. Last week, the mayor and Williams unveiled their long-awaited plan for expanding the department--a blueprint that emphasizes the LAPD patrol force.

For many LAPD operations, that plan offers a glimmer of hope. If the mayor and City Council can identify funds to pay for the buildup, the department could gain thousands of officers in the next five years.

But several commanders said that even if Riordan succeeds in that task, it will be some time before the specialized units return to full strength.

“My guess would be that these units will be depleted for a long time,” Lewis said. “We are so shorthanded in the field.”

And it is the field where police work is grounded, observers agree.

A department of detectives might solve more crimes, and a department of theft suppression units might halt more robberies. But when there is an intruder in the house, it is a patrol officer--not a detective or an undercover cop--who comes to the rescue.

Moreover, Williams and other advocates of community-based policing argue, when more officers patrol the streets, they will deter crime by raising the likelihood that criminals will be caught.

That, according to department leaders and others, makes the sacrifice of specialized units, even effective ones, an essential part of retooling the LAPD.

“Patrol is the meat and potatoes of any department,” said Gary Greenebaum, president of the Police Commission. “It’s the basic element of policing, and we need to do it well.”

* POLICE PROTEST: About 200 officers demonstrated for a wage increase. B1