Story From the Streets of Southeast LA #1

In 1995, I was a happy motor cop working with my partner Bill Rugh in the Northeast Area of LA (Los Feliz, Highland Park, Silver Lake). I was 11M52 and Bill was 11M51. Life was good and then I was promoted to the rank of sergeant by then Chief of Police Willie Williams. On Saturday, July 15, 1995, I was 11M52. The next day, July 16, I was 18L70, a Field Supervisor in Southeast (Watts, etc.).

Don't get me wrong. I wanted to promote and I had quite a bit of experience in South Los Angeles, but it was an uncomfortable transition for the following reasons:

1. Motor Officers on LAPD earn two salary steps above what other officers of the same rank earn plus I was making "longevity pay" (one additional salary step) for having been on the job for at least twenty years. In other words I was earning three steps above base pay for a policeman. When you promote, the city starts you in your new rank at one salary step above your current base pay grade, not including the two steps I had been earning for being a motor cop, and you lose longevity pay. So essentially I went from a policeman plus three steps to a sergeant at two steps lower. A cut in take home pay of right at $100 a payday (2 weeks. You get it back eventually but it's difficult at first.

2. Motor Officers take their motorcycles home and don't have to pay any of the costs, such as gas. That was worth about $350 a month to me because we didn't need a second car for me to commute to work in. As a patrol field sergeant, I had to get to work on my own meaning I needed a second car.

3. The last time I was assigned to patrol as a policeman was in 1975. Since then, i had worked as a traffic collision investigator, research writer, legislative analyst, driver training instructor and thirteen years as a motor cop.

So there I was on a Sunday morning in one of the busiest, violent areas in the world and I was one of two field supervisors.

At about 10:00 AM, I was called to 104th Street and central Avenue. Two of our A-cars had responded to a bomb threat call at the County welfare office building there. The officers wanted to know if they should evacuate the four story building or not. I asked if we had met with the ranking person in the building yet or not. The officers had not. There was also a County security force stationed at the building. I requested that the officer in charge of that force and the highest ranking manager on site meet with me.

I explained that my position was that the decision was theirs as to what to do and that we would help them any way we could. we determined through contacting 911 that the call had come from a pay phone in the lobby of the building and that the pay phone was near a permanently stationed county security person. Based on that information and the nature of the people who frequent the facility (welfare recipients, some of whom are disgruntled for various reasons), I stated that I believed it was likely the bomb threat was a hoax but it was their call.

We did not evacuate the building but did a walk-through visual inspection finding nothing suspicious. That was all we did and fortunately nothing happened. Today, we would definitely have a bomb squad response but that was 1995. Things have changed.