“Isn’t there somewhere else you should be?”
It’s a question I’ve often meant to ask on a Thursday
night in the blocks surrounding fraternity row.
Sheltered by the city limits of Bel Air, Brentwood and the
Westwood commercial district, dozens of college students congregate
in the streets, idly wandering from party to party.
But it’s not the students I’ve been meaning to ask.
It’s later on, when a new contingent arrives, that the
question comes up. They arrive fashionably late, but never too late
““ usually around midnight. They bring their own flashlights
and costumes, and when they arrive, you know the party has reached
its peak and will soon be nearing its end.
It’s not that I’m ungrateful to the police. They do
a fantastic job of preventing crime and ensuring that the UCLA
campus and its surrounding areas are a safe working and living
environment.
In 2004, there were 146 fewer reported incidents of “Part
I” violent and property crimes ““ which include rapes,
attempted rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults ““ than in
2003.
But there are times when I wonder, in the vast, amorphous and
segregated concrete jungle of the city of Los Angeles, are there
communities in greater need of a police force than fraternity
row?
As third-year archaeology student Myles Mitchell said, “To
have masses of police rush in and squash the party seems a gross
overreaction. These are not real criminals ““ they’re
just a bunch of college kids.”
These thoughts were echoed by fourth-year anthropology student
Emily Ng.
“When you see at least six police cars blockading the
streets for the finals-week Undie Run, it gives you some idea of
what use the police force is going to in Westwood,” Ng
said.
It’s difficult to conceal a weapon when you’re
running and wearing nothing but underwear. But it’s not
difficult to imagine a community in Los Angeles where there are
more concealed weapons and fewer police officers than there are on
fraternity row on a Thursday night.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, officers are
distributed by crime analysts according to a number of factors,
including the number of Part I crimes in each area.
But the university police are a separate entity funded by
different sources, which means the police officers at the UCPD
cannot be regularly redistributed beyond UCLA property.
As UCPD spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein explained, “The UCPD
has primary jurisdiction over UCLA and its properties. … It also
has mild jurisdiction around UCLA properties, such as fraternity
row.”
They do not have jurisdiction beyond these areas.
The problem is not that the UCPD is taking away from the
staffing of the LAPD. In fact, the university police are lessening
the workload of the LAPD in the vicinity of UCLA.
The problem is that a system in which a public police force is
stretched throughout an entire city and then supplemented in
affluent areas by private police forces underserves the communities
that are most in need.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that the LAPD is
relatively understaffed. The city of Los Angeles, with a population
of 3.7 million, has a police force of over 9,000 officers. Chicago,
on the other hand, has a smaller population of 2.9 million, but a
larger police force, with over 13,000 officers.
The disparities between police protection in Westwood and South
Los Angeles were illustrated by two gang shootings in 1988.
Karen Toshima, a 27-year-old graphic artist, was caught in fatal
crossfire between two rival gangs outside a restaurant in Westwood.
As reported in Time Magazine, “Police patrols in Westwood
tripled, and the LAPD assigned a 30-member anti-gang unit to
capture Toshima’s killer.”
But when 67-year-old Alma Washington was killed at the entrance
to her South Los Angeles apartment less than two weeks later by
gang-related gunfire that resulted in a bullet entering her right
eye, the LAPD assigned only two officers to her case.
I would like to think things have changed over the last 17
years. But the new contingent and the Bel Air Patrol signs
littering the gardens of many Westwood homes tell me that ““
just like the health sector ““ when it comes to security, you
get what you pay for.
In 1988, Los Angeles had 7,350 officers to serve a population of
3.3 million people. Today’s figures are not much better.
To ensure everybody’s security, what we need is a police
force that covers every community. Hopefully it won’t take a
ghost from the past to make us realize the answer to my original
question is “yes.”
If you think you have the answers, send them to Marshall at
jmarshall@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.