page_title: History of the Los Angeles Police Department
section_title: 1978–2002
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Los Angeles Police Department / 1978–2002
caption_attribution_description: English: A second-generation Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor of the Los Angeles Police Department, photographed outside the Staples Center in June 2002.
context_page_description: The Los Angeles Police Department was formed in 1869, and has since become the third-largest law enforcement agency in the United States. They have been involved in various events in history, such as the Black Dahlia murder case, and the Rampart scandal.
context_section_description: The successor to Davis, Daryl F. Gates, came into office just as Proposition 13 reduced the department's budget, cutting police numbers to less than 7,000 in seven years, just as drug and gang crime reached unprecedented highs. To combat the rising tide of gang-related violence, Gates introduced Operation Hammer in 1987, which resulted in an unprecedented number of arrests, mostly of black American and Hispanic youths. Gates retired in 1992, just after the Rodney King-related 1992 Los Angeles riots in April and May and the damaging Christopher Commission Report, and was replaced by Willie L. Williams, the fiftieth chief, the first African-American officer to hold the office and the first non-internal appointee for almost 40 years. In 1997, Williams was replaced by Bernard Parks, during whose term the LAPD was rocked by the Rampart Division/CRASH corruption scandal. In 1997, one of the biggest challenges for the LAPD and LAPD SWAT was the North Hollywood shootout in which two bank robbers armed with automatic rifles and wearing body armor shot twelve responding officers and two civilians. The suspects were eventually defeated by SWAT units after a gun battle that lasted nearly an hour.
  In November 1997, the Department did something for the first time in forty years in taking over another police department—the MTA Transit Police. Originally touted as a merger process, this became a political football with members of the City Council fighting the mayor's "one city—one police department" plan to eliminate all of the smaller, specialized police forces (Transit Police, Airport Police, School Police, Park Rangers, etc.).  In the end, only about 130 of the originally slated 200 officers of the MTA Transit Police came to the LAPD, with about the same number going to the LASD (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department).  After less than five years, the MTA removed LAPD from the transit policing contract it had established with LAPD and LASD, and LASD was given the entire MTA contract.  As of 2006, only 96 of those officers remained with the LAPD.  
  In 2002, after a loss of approximately 1,700 officers in two years, mostly to other Southern California police departments and in the face of an unprecedented homicide rate, Mayor Hahn moved to have the Board of Police Commissioners refuse to accept Parks' application for another five-year term. Parks appealed to the City Council who refused to take up his cause.  Parks initially threatened a lawsuit, but thought better of it and considered a run for City Council in the near future instead. Parks promptly left office, several months before his five-year term was up. Former Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy was selected as an interim Chief until a permanent replacement could be found. Also in 2002, voters in the City passed the Proposition Q—Citywide Public Safety Bond to expand, renovate and replace existing police and fire facilities. This $600 million bond program included replacement of the West Valley, Rampart, Hollenbeck, and Harbor Police Stations; adding a new Emergency Operations Center; replacing the Parker Center Jail; adding a new Operations Valley Bureau/Valley Traffic Division; and adding two new Area Police Stations—20th (Olympic Area) and 21st (Topanga Area) Police Stations.
caption: An LAPD CVPI drives past the Staples Center in June 2002.
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