CJ 510 Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric

Overview: The final project in this course will expose you to a problem situation and task you with how it should be solved. You will imagine you are employed at
a criminal justice organization facing a communal problem. Your superior at the organization has asked you to review the problem situation and offer your
recommendations. You will be given the chance to evaluate the situation and develop suggestions that will inform development of strategies to address the issue
using appropriate ethical and transparent leadership and communication skills.

The main purpose of this first milestone of your project is to get you to reflect seriously and write about the case study that you will focus on for your final
project. First, review the Final Project Guidelines and Rubric. Second, read these two case studies and choose one to analyze for your final project. To access the
case studies, refer to the Harvard Business Review Coursepack Module:

1. NYPD New
2. The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

In a journal, which is private between you and your instructor, reflect on how you think you will approach this final project. Consider what type of research you
might need and how you will be able to use the Shapiro Library to conduct research.

Prompt: Your journal assignment should include the following critical elements:

1. Identify your selected case study. Discuss why you chose this case study.
2. Explain your research plan and how you plan to gather research to help you with your final project. After reviewing the Final Project Guidelines and

Rubric, describe what research you think you will need to gather to support your final project.
3. Based on what you know about leadership in criminal justice, discuss what you think are the main issues or downfalls with the actions of the leadership

in the case study. You will learn more about leadership and ethics in criminal justice throughout the course. Use what you know at this point to reflect on
your case study.

Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: Submit assignment as a 2–4 paragraph Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins.

Critical Elements Proficient (100%) Needs Improvement (80%) Not Evident (0%) Value

Case Study Identifies the case study and
discusses why the case study was
chosen

Identifies the case study but the
reasons for why it was chosen are
not well articulated

Does not identify the case study

30

Research Plan Explains how research will be
gathered for the final project

Explains how research will be
gathered for the final project, but
explanation lacks detail or
contains inaccuracies

Does not explain how research
will be gathered for the final
project

30

Main Issues Discusses the main issues or
downfalls with the actions of the
leadership in the case study

Discusses the main issues or
downfalls with the actions of the
leadership in the case study, but
with gaps in clarity

Does not discuss the main issues
or downfalls with the actions of
the leadership in the case study

30

Articulation of Response Submission has no major errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization

Submission has major errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization
that negatively impact readability
and articulation of main ideas

Submission has critical errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization
that prevent understanding of
ideas

10

Total 100%

CJ 510 Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric
Rubric

Harvard Business School 9-396-29

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Rev. June 22, 199

9

Professor James L. Heskett prepared this case as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or
ineffective handling of an administrative situation.

Copyright © 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to
reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School.

1

NYPD New

Commissioner William Bratton and his executive staff could take satisfaction in the progress
made by the New York Police Department (NYPD) toward goals they had set at the outset of 1994 to
reduce major crimes in the City. Their efforts had produced better results than even some of them
had expected, better even than portrayed in the popular television drama carrying the Department’s
name. So much better, in fact, that the Commissioner recently had trumpeted the City’s rapidly
improving crime record to a bond rating agency responsible for rating New York City’s debt,
pointing out that improvements in quality of life would have an eventual favorable impact on the
City’s desirability as a place to do business, further strengthening its credit-worthiness.

Although the Department was in the process of delivering results desired by the City’s
residents, many questioned whether and how the highly-publicized, results-oriented emphasis of
Bratton’s first twenty-four months as Commissioner could be sustained. (Exhibit 1 contains a report
of New York’s crime statistics compared with other major U.S. cities.

)

As Bratton’s team of deputy commissioners (civilians) and chiefs (uniformed personnel)
gathered in his office on a morning in late January, 1996, he pondered the appropriate strategy that
would enable his organization to continue to produce results with the budget shortfalls that the City
was experiencing. The Thursday, January 25 copy of The New York Times on his desk, the very same
desk used by Teddy Roosevelt when he was Police Commissioner 100 years earlier, carried a front
page article headlined, “Giuliani (Rudolph Giuliani, the Mayor of New York) Weighing Cuts to
Police to Help Decrease Budget Deficit.” It was no surprise, in that it reflected his recent discussions
with Mayor Giuliani, whose administration faced a $2 billion (6%) deficit in fiscal 1995 in spite of
significant efforts to reduce the budget.

Bratton opened his weekly Executive Staff meeting by pointing out that achieving a further
10% reduction in major crimes during 1996 was beginning to pale in difficulty and complexity to
several other challenges facing the Department. These included reduction in funding from the City,
restrictions on ways the Department could deploy its resources and reward performance, and the
difficulty of sustaining the momentum that had produced greatly improved results in the past two
years. After pointing out that the department was “going into a very stressful year,” Bratton
challenged his deputies to be as creative in responding to these new challenges as they had in
reducing crime.

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History

Founded in 1845, the New York Police Department was the largest municipal police
organization in the U.S. At various times in its history, it had been a model for big city policing.
However, like other large municipal police organizations, its work was measured in terms of effort,
such as the speed with which 911 (emergency) calls were answered and the number of patrols
dispatched. From time to time, it had experienced periodic claims of corruption and police brutality.

As Bratton described it:

We, as an organization, like many police departments in America during the
1970s and 1980s, became very reactive in our approach to crime. . . the traditional or
professional policing model that was made up of rapid response: Dial 911 and we’ll
come very quickly. . .We focused on random patrol as the chief preventive
measure—the idea that all these cars riding around would scare the criminals into
submission. (Additionally), there was reactive investigation, something we always
had done-after-the-fact investigation. And it was often controlled by a strong,
centralized organization; in the case of the NYPD, you had to go up to the top of the
organization to make even the most basic decisions.1

The concept of community policing began to sweep police departments in the U.S. in the late
1980s. Under this concept, individual officers, often the youngest members of the force, were
encouraged to spend more time in the neighborhoods, maintain more visibility, gain the confidence
of the citizens of a neighborhood, and collect information that would lead to efforts to deter crime.
Nevertheless, specialized units trained to handle particular types of crimes, especially those that were
drug-related, continued to exist. This reflected a fear that some patrol officers might be tempted to
become involved in corrupt activities, such as drug dealing, themselves. In general, community
policing initiatives had created a tension between personnel deployment strategies designed to
provide maximum visibility of officers and those designed to deal with high-crime areas.

Safe Streets, Safe City Program

In response to increases in crime of near-epidemic proportions, Mayor David Dinkins and the
New York City Council had won approval from the State Legislature in 1991 to hire 6,000 officers and
pay for them through increased property taxes and a 12.5% surcharge to the City’s income tax. The
bill specified the total head count of all police in the city to be achieved on August 1 of each year
(38,310 for August 1, 1995).

The program, called Safe Streets, Safe City, was due to expire on June 20, 1996. It had been
initiated under extensive potential pressures to take a tougher stance on crime. A proposal had been
put forth by the Speaker of the City Council to maintain the surcharge, but to use it in the future to
finance the repair of increasingly dilapidated schools.

Giuliani Assumes Office

The election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in November, 1993 opened a new era for the
Department. Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who had built
his reputation as a tough fighter against corruption and organized crime, campaigned and won

1 Marie Simonetti Rosen, “Moving the Biggest Mountain,” Law Enforcement News, June 30, 1995, pp. 8-10. The
word in parentheses is the author’s.

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largely on a campaign that emphasized reductions in New York City’s budget deficits and improved
crime control. These were to be achieved largely by exempting the Police Department from cuts in
budgets for uniformed personnel, cuts that were implemented for nearly every other function of the
City’s government. However, Giuliani inherited a Police Department that was badly in need of new
technology and methods. Work was done by hand that could otherwise be computerized.
Communication systems were badly outdated. Often police officers were more poorly armed than
the criminals they confronted.

There was a very low level of trust among senior officers as well as between the leadership
and the rank-and-file in the Department. One graphic example of this was the denial of access codes
to automated criminal history files. Because of this policy, designed to limit misuse of information,
officers in one precinct could not gain access to information about crimes committed outside the
precinct. As a result, it was nearly impossible for an arresting officer to check a suspect’s criminal
record. Focus group meetings with frontline patrol people yielded responses such as “this place is
not on the level” and “our bosses don’t want to fight crime.” John Linder, a communications
consultant who, as part of an ongoing organization change effort, conducted a survey of what patrol
officers believed the Department wanted from them, cited as most important: write summonses, hold
down overtime, stay out of trouble, and clear the 911 backlog, in that order. Fighting crime was
seventh on the list.

One of Giuliani’s first actions was to appoint William Bratton, Police Commissioner of
Boston, to a similar post in New York. He was sworn in on January 10, 1994.

Giuliani’s New Police Commissioner

A product of a working class family in Dorchester, Massachusetts whose father held full-time
jobs in a metal-plating shop by day and the post office at night, William Bratton credited his first
police job as a patrolman in Mattapan, a tough neighborhood of Boston, with giving him the self-
assurance that some of his detractors tended to regard as bravado. The experience led him, according
to one account, to develop:

. . . a particularly powerful distaste for precinct bosses who stayed away
from volatile situations and weighed in afterward with criticism of their
subordinates. “When I was working District Fourteen, in Boston, we had a major
broo-ha in one of the public parks, and every cop in the district was there . . . There
were two sergeants, old-school guys, back in the station, and we were calling for
P.S.”—patrol supervisors—”and neither one of those bastards would come out. They
were two cowards hiding in the station house. We had a lot of them like that in
Boston. They didn’t want to see anything.”2

Bratton came to the job of Commissioner with a clear understanding of the problems of
police administration in New York City. Before assuming the job that quickly led to his being named
Commissioner of Boston’s Police Department, he had served as the chief of the New York City
Transit Police Department between 1990 and 1992. During that time, he had helped transform a
somewhat demoralized force policing a transit system confronting increased robbery, fare beating,
and a homeless population of about 5,000 living in transit facilities into an effective deterrent to these
problems.

2 James Lardner, “The C.E.O. Cop,” The New Yorker, February 6, 1995, pp. 45-57, at p. 53.

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Bratton was an avid reader of management literature and fan of war movies. He occasionally
referred to citizens as “customers,” criminals as “competition,” police officers as “sales
representatives,” and reduced crime as “profit.” He and his wife, Cheryl Fiandaca, a former criminal-
defense lawyer who was teaching at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, lived with five cats and
a dog in a two-bedroom apartment on Central Park South and were frequently seen at cultural events
as well as some of the City’s better restaurants.

At about the time Bratton was appointed to head up the transit police, Jack Maple, a
lieutenant in the transit police, came to the attention of the Commissioner through a plan for
reducing crime that he had drafted. Maple, given to drinking espresso and wearing bow ties, blazers,
and two-tone wing-tip spectator shoes (with a homburg hat in winter), was a sartorial opposite of
Bratton (who tended toward Hermes animal ties) and a somewhat distinctive sight even on the
streets of New York. (According to Maple, he adopted the dress because, as a short, stocky person,
he attracted no attention in his youth as a conventional dresser.) The two hit if off immediately, with
Maple, labeled by one journalist as “the Police Department’s secret crime-fighting weapon,”
becoming a co-architect of a plan to turn the Transit Police Department around. As Bratton said more
than once to those curious about his attraction to Maple, “Jack grows on you.”

The program to transform the transit police was focused on two main thrusts. The first
involved an effort to deter petty as well as major crimes committed on the system by attacking
“quality of life” misdemeanors. For example, “sweeps” by officers in plain clothes were organized to
arrest those avoiding fares (“fare beaters”). The search that was done routinely after arrest often
yielded weapons which served to deter more serious crime. In Bratton’s words, “A search or the
threat of one is, in itself, a deterrent to crime because it encourages people to stop carrying guns.” In
fact, searches of fare beaters alone had turned up more than 400 concealed weapons in the first year.

The second thrust involved equipping the police with 9 mm. weapons with larger magazines,
new autos, and new uniforms to improve their image in their own eyes as well as the public’s.

Challenges and Responses: First Steps

Challenges facing the Department in early 1994 included a restive public that had swept
Giuliani into office in part for his promises of safer streets; a somewhat demoralized police force
whose “business was to stay out of trouble, not to police the city,” according to John Linder; and a
prior administrative focus on effort (number of patrols dispatched) vs. results (crime reduction).

According to one member of Bratton’s executive staff, “there was widespread backbiting, fear
of failure, and low performance. The structure of the organization was completely top-down. The
Department lacked focus, and without focus a police department can end up being a municipal yo-
yo.” A former Precinct Commander said that the attitude of the senior staff had been, “You people in
the precincts just make work for us.”

Upon assuming office, Bratton quickly replaced a number of senior staff members, the largest
organization shake-up in some time. Having decided that primary responsibility for day-to-day
operations would reside with the 76 precinct commanders, a systematic effort was instituted to
determine which of them could adapt to a strategy focused on results. Eventually, three-fourths of all
precinct commanders Bratton inherited were moved out of their jobs. In his first 24 months on the
job, the average age of the Commissioner’s senior staff had fallen from the low 60s to the mid 40s.
Bratton took great satisfaction in the result, saying “I would pit my command staff against any
Fortune 500 company.”

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Bratton’s reputation among police officers as a “cop’s commissioner” was reinforced during
his first week on the job as he began pushing for weapons with larger 15-round magazines that he
had secured for his transit police several years earlier. These had become the envy of, and a source of
resentment among, members of the main force required to use non-automatic weapons. Improved
bullet-proof vests were ordered along with darker uniforms that conveyed a more authoritative
image.

Word got around rapidly among police that this was a commissioner who “backed you up”
but who would not hesitate to take disciplinary action if necessary. He was quick to obtain reliable
information and, where appropriate, defend officers accused of excessive force. But in the situation
involving the disclosure of widespread police corruption in the 30th Precinct just three months into
his administration, Bratton accompanied the arresting force, personally removing the badges of
offending officers. Later, he called all precinct commanders to headquarters, threw the badges on the
table, and announced to the assembled group that he was retiring the badges so that no other police
officer would ever have to wear them. A short time later, however, he emphasized to a reporter that
he had “no intention of becoming an anticorruption zealot.”

The public saw in Bratton an articulate spokesman capable of relating to their concerns.
Shortly after taking office, he began making frequent references, both inside and outside the
Department, to “taking the City back from criminals one block, one street, and one neighborhood at a
time.” In contrast to Bratton’s popularity with the public, reporters used adjectives like “mouthy”
and “cocksure” to describe him. One commented that he had a “consuming interest in media
relations.” Bratton was so effective in these encounters that some reporters sensed a growing rivalry
between him and the Mayor, something that both denied.

“Quality-of-Life” Legislation

Mayor Giuliani, prompted by polls showing that New Yorkers were concerned about a
declining “quality of life,” characterized by more graffiti and vagrancy, promised to enforce existing
laws against those committing what were termed “quality of life” misdemeanors, including urinating
in public, spraying graffiti, and disorderly conduct. Much as had been done at the Transit Police
Department, police were marshaled to reduce “quality of life” misdemeanors thought to be most
important by the citizenry. In the first quarter of 1994, for example, arrests of peddlers, public
drinkers, and squeegee cleaners increased 38%, summonses increased 40%, and sales tax violation
citations increased 49% over the previous year. The effort achieved its greatest notoriety when it was
used to go after what came to be known as “squeegee pests,” people who approached stopped autos,
cleaned their windshields, and demanded money from their occupants. Squeegee pests were warned
then arrested. By increasing efforts begun in mid-1993, squeegee pests practically vanished from the
streets by spring of 1994.

In addition, existing laws were used, for example, to arrest graffiti “artists” who spray-
painted municipal and other property as well as slum landlords who had allowed their properties to
fall into a state of disarray. The theory behind these efforts had two different rationales. The first
was the “broken windows” theory that if a broken window is not fixed in a building, soon all
windows will be broken. It held that people engaging in one kind of misdemeanor might be inclined
to commit others as well, especially that of carrying a concealed or unlicensed gun. Heightened
enforcement of these laws resulted in an increased number of searches and increased questioning in a
process that turned up several hundred weapons in the first six months of the initiative.
Commissioner Bratton referred to these practices as the “linchpin” in his crime-fighting strategies.
The idea was not new; when it had been proposed by a consultant to Bratton’s predecessor, he had
responded, “Give me 50 guys, suspend the Constitution, and we can do that.”

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Process and Organization Reengineering

Commissioner Bratton often referred to the work of his team as “reengineering an
underperforming organization.” The fame of the Department and pride of its police officers made
this particularly difficult. According to Bratton, “Two years ago, the NYPD, like the emperor, had no
clothes. This was an organization that was living on reputation.”3 To help, Bratton hired a
consultant, John Linder, who had assisted him previously in Boston.

Linder’s “Cultural Diagnostic”

Linder set about to collect data, change perceptions, and provide the basis for action through
a detailed questionnaire, called a “cultural diagnostic,” that encouraged members of the Department
to disclose their feelings about their jobs in return for a promise of anonymity. Based on the returns
from this “diagnostic,” focus groups were organized in which respondents were promised
anonymity in exchange for uncensored opinions. According to this report:

John Miller, NYPD spokesman…says that cops, trained to defend the
Department’s image, detested Linder’s therapy. “They hated the idea that they had
to say it out loud. Linder put these guys through a bureaucratic AA meeting. You
had to admit you had a problem, and you had to recount for everyone else in the
group how long you’d had the problem and how serious it was.”4

Reengineering Teams

Based on the results of Linder’s effort, Bratton organized 300 members of the Department
into 12 teams asked to address the following themes: building community partnerships,
geographical vs. functional organizational structure, precinct organization, supervisory training, in-
service training, productivity, paperwork, integrity, rewards and career paths, discipline, equipment
and uniforms, and technology. Management thought leaders such as Jack Welch and Michael
Hammer were brought in to address the teams. The process produced more than 600
recommendations, 80% of which were implemented.

Resulting changes ranged from the obvious to the complex. For example, one early finding
from the paperwork team was that there were at least 4,000 forms in active use within the
Department. John Linder commented that the forms played a very distinctive role in the personnel
strategies of previous administrations:

These forms were used to hang people down the food chain. As an officer,
you had two choices. Either you filled out the form wrong and got flogged for it. Or
you filled it out properly and accurately and were asked, “Why didn’t you do
something about this?” Either way, you couldn’t win.

Bratton himself cited several obvious problems with what he termed “bankers’ hours”:

The auto-theft squad was working nine to five, and the drug units were
mostly working ten to six, with a few going two to ten. . . The warrant unit was
getting started at 7:30 a.m., and by the time they read the papers and had their coffee,

3 Chris Smith, “The NYPD Guru,” New York, April 1, 1996, pp. 28-34, at p. 31.
4 Ibid.

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it was ten before they’d start knocking on doors. The department was not really
minding the store.5

Another study found that the average amount of police officer overtime associated with an
arrest was 12 hours. It resulted from the fact that much of an officer’s involvement in the preparation
and presentation of a complaint by a district attorney had to be done in person, although it was solely
within the discretion of a D.A. to alter the process. Because overtime was an important source of
income for many officers, they did not complain about the waste of their time in the arrest and
complaint process.

In the process of reengineering the organization, a reporting level was eliminated. This
meant that precinct commanders, who formally reported to one of 17 division commanders, now
reported directly to eight bureau commanders.

Because the incidence of drugs and guns often occurred in overlapping geographic patterns,
specialized drug units were replaced with Strategic Narcotics and Gun teams who investigated
situations involving both. In addition, new crime control strategies purposely required the formation
of teams designed to break down the barriers that had separated the Patrol, Detective, and Organized
Crime Control Bureaus.

Development of the Strategies

Many of the ideas developed by the reengineering teams made their way into seven
strategies, written by Linder, each of which were published in separate booklets designed for wide
distribution under seven titles: (1) Getting Guns off the Streets of New York, (2) Curbing Youth
Violence in the Schools and on the Streets, (3) Driving Drug Dealers out of New York, (4) Breaking
the Cycle of Domestic Violence, (5) Reclaiming the Public Spaces of New York, and (6) Reducing
Auto-Related Crime in New York. In response to continuing concerns about police corruption, a
seventh strategy was added in mid-1995 titled, “Police Strategy No. 7: Rooting out Corruption;
Building Organizational Integrity in the New York Police Department.”

Each strategy statement contained a statement of the problem, current practice, specific
conditions warranting the strategy, the strategy itself, and changes in laws as well as departmental
policies and procedures that would be necessary to facilitate the strategy.

Excerpts from Strategy No. 5 are shown in Exhibit 2. When first developed, the strategies
were labeled “bullshit” by many frontline police officers. Attitudes had begun to change with their
implementation.

Organization

Police work in New York City traditionally had been carried out in three separate
organizations. One force was entrusted with general public safety. Another dealt with police work
associated with housing issues. The third concerned itself with crime on the city’s transit system.
One of the new Commissioner’s first objectives was to implement the merger of these three
departments, a high priority of the new mayor. The three forces were consolidated in April 1995.
The job structure and headcounts for the consolidated department are described in Exhibit 3. Exhibit
4 contains an organization chart for the Department.

5 Craig Horowitz, “The Suddenly Safer City,” New York, August 14, 1995, p. 25.

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Management by the Numbers

Among the more important initiatives of the new administration were a new emphasis on
results vs. effort, reinforced by efforts to computerize statistics and graphics formerly organized by
hand, as well as the institution of twice-weekly “CompStat” (computerized crime comparison
statistics) crime-strategy meetings based on the more-current information. In addition to introducing
new performance measures based on this information, other initiatives involved giving more
authority to the 76 precinct commanders, redefining the role of the officers policing neighborhoods,
reengineering processes, and introducing new technology. All of this effort, and the results it would
produce, was a topic of some debate among those knowledgeable about police work and crime
control.

New Performance Measures

New performance measures were instituted for precinct commanders. Instead of being
measured on the amount of effort put forth by their units, they would now be held accountable for
the quality of their plans for dealing with crime problems. Increased emphasis was placed on efforts
thought to lead to crime reduction. These included the proportion of people arrested and searched in
connection with misdemeanors and the frequency with which those arrested had their past police
records checked at the time they were identified and searched. According to Deputy Commissioner
Maple: “You don’t get into trouble for increased crime, but for not having a strategy to deal with it.”

Performance was monitored daily by the NYPD’s leadership. As Bratton put it, “Can you
imagine running a bank if you couldn’t look at your bottom line every day?”

Results vs. Effort: Reducing Crime

Whether or not crime could be reduced was a matter of some debate among criminologists
and sociologists. Since a study commissioned by the Johnson Administration, “The Challenge of
Crime in a Free Society,” was published in 1967, it had become conventional wisdom to assume that
most inner-city crime was the inevitable product of poverty and racism. Among the theories used to
explain a widespread decline in major crime in large cities between 1991 and 1995 were an improved
economy, a smaller number of young males (representing an especially high crime risk in the
population), increased numbers of drug dealers either dead or in jail, a switch from crack cocaine (a
violence-inducing drug) to heroin (a depressant) as the drug of choice in cities, the settlement of
many gang “turf wars,” and reduced racism.6 Rarely was credit given to police ability to control the
rate of crime. All of this was perceived by members of the Department as devaluing its recent
achievements. One newspaper columnist suggested that the reason for the striking results achieved
by the Department was that New Yorkers were not reporting crime as frequently as in the past. One
of Bratton’s predecessors even suggested that the trends were the result of a conscious decision on
the part of drug dealers that crime (other than drug dealing) was bad for business.

In response, Bratton pointed to the dramatic results achieved in New York in contrast to
other major cities. He argued that most of the theories that discounted the NYPD’s recent
accomplishments essentially assumed that all police departments were equally effective, a thesis that
would be hard to defend. Instead of measuring and rewarding effort, their approach involved
identifying the causes of major crime and deploying resources to reduce the likelihood that crime
would occur, effectively utilizing information and technology

6 Most of these trends were not true for New York City.

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For example, statistics suggested that there were three major circumstances associated with
many murders: drugs, guns, and people with police records. Locations where drugs were dealt were
well-known. People carrying licensed guns were known to the police; unlicensed guns were often
found during police searches. With improved technology, such as cellular phones, quick checks
could be run on the police records of individuals stopped for various offenses. By reallocating
resources to places where drugs, guns, and people with prior records were found, dramatic
reductions in murder could be achieved, according to this philosophy. This was accomplished by
giving more authority to precinct commanders and holding them accountable for their performance
numbers.

Precinct-Level Authority and Accountability

Prior to Bratton’s administration, an emphasis on neighborhood policing had resulted in
more police being placed “on the beat” in neighborhoods and more authority being given to them to
deal with anti-crime initiatives at the grass-roots level, calling in specialized experts from
headquarters when necessary. Problems associated with this approach were that some
neighborhoods were so crime-ridden that the young officers placed in them couldn’t cope with the
challenge. Novice police (most likely to be assigned foot patrol in the neighborhood police initiative)
were less likely to use good judgment in threatening situations and often were lacking the human
relations skills needed by neighborhood police. Precinct commanders had too little real control over
the neighborhood police working for them, and resources were more difficult to allocate intelligently
than under a plan that would place authority and accountability at a higher level. To correct the
situation, Bratton’s team decided to focus authority and accountability at the level of the precinct
commanders.

The rationale for this action was that individuals at this level could bring sufficient deterrents
to bear on difficult crime areas, resources could be reallocated from one “hot spot” to another within
the precinct, results could be measured with greater consistency and reliability, and the precinct was
a large enough unit to support its own specialized forces. Precinct commanders had been denied
greater authority and accountability because it was feared that there was a risk of corruption if
headquarters oversight could no longer be achieved through specialized services provided to the
precincts.

As a result of this action, officers on neighborhood patrols were freed to concentrate their
efforts on relating to neighborhood needs while obtaining leads on possible criminal activity.

The CompStat Meetings

If the precinct commander became the focal point for carrying out crime-reduction strategies,
the CompStat meetings and associated activities became the engine for the effort. They were a
product of Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple’s favorite four-step philosophy for action, a philosophy
that had become a mantra in the Department: (1) accurate, timely information, (2) rapid, focused
deployment, (3) effective tactics, and (4) relentless follow-up and assessment. Prior to the initiation of
the meetings, according to one senior staff member, “crime statistics were a way of keeping score at
the end of the year, not a means for managing for results.”

What became known as the “Louie and Jack Show,” twice-weekly CompStat (computerized
statistics) meetings, required precinct commanders to be ready to review their up-to-date computer-
generated crime statistics and relate what they were going to be doing to achieve crime reduction.
They were led by Chief of Department Louis Anemone and Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple and
were held in the Department’s “War Room,” containing a number of large computer-fed screens and
other devices for displaying statistics, at Headquarters in Lower Manhattan. A reporter sitting in on
one meeting described it as follows:

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Maple called the precinct commanders to the front of the room in turn,
questioning, prodding, cajoling, and occasionally teasing information out of them.
They discussed ongoing investigations, special operations, and any unusual criminal
activity. When the men and women from the 81st Precinct got their call, they were
asked to explain a recent spate of shootings.

“What’s going on?” Maple wanted to know. “Why are these shootings
happening? Is it a turf war? No? Well, somebody’s not happy. Maybe they’re
cranky ‘cause it’s hot, but something’s happening.” When the shooting locations
were put up on the huge map projected on the wall, along with those of drug
complaints in the precinct, there was a clear overlap. Maple asked what was being
done about the drug spots, and one of the narcotics officers said it was a tough area
because the business was done inside and there were lots of lookouts. “That’s fine,”
Maple said. “That’s why we’re detectives. Tell me what tactics we can employ to
penetrate these locations.” The detective said they would try some buy-and-bust
operations and maybe get a couple of the guys behind the Plexiglas to rat when an
arrest was hanging over their heads. Maple wasn’t satisfied.

“I want you back here next week with a plan,” he said to the precinct captain
(normally each precinct comes in once every five weeks).7

In order to respond to the kinds of questions posed at CompStat meetings, precinct
commanders began bringing with them to the meetings representatives from other bureaus (such as
detectives) who were assigned to their precincts. The meetings thus encouraged inter-bureau
coordination.

CompStat meetings had become well-known throughout the police world. Given the
growing success of the Department, they were visited by police administrators and journalists from
other parts of the U.S. and other countries. According to one precinct commander, “If your numbers
don’t look good, these meetings are not fun.” Data displayed at a typical CompStat meeting is
presented in Exhibit 5.

In addition to organizing CompStat meetings, Chief Anemone and Deputy Commissioner
Maple toured the precinct commands, covering as many as 15 in a weekend. During these visits they
checked to see, among other things, whether crime strategy maps were up-to-date, proper
instructions were being given to patrol officers at roll-call, and communications from headquarters
were displayed prominently.

Introduction of New Technology

Efforts to collect, organize, and display crime information by computer, part of a larger effort
to modernize the Department’s information systems, had required an investment of $500,000. They
had become a cornerstone of the Department’s strategy, and were thought to have a high return.

New uses of video conferencing technology allowed officers to interact with district attorneys
in precincts in order to reduce the average time, much of it overtime, associated with the arrest-to-
arraignment process from 14 to a goal of 2 hours. This was critically important in a police force with
wages averaging $24 per hour. (At least one district attorney, when advised of the costs incurred by
current procedures, had even approved the use of the telephone for an officer’s involvement in the
arrest process).

7 Craig Horowitz, op.cit., pp. 21-25.

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Other technology-based initiatives, supported by a newly-passed Federal Crime Bill and
private sector donations, included the purchase of precinct-based computers and mapping software
to develop crime analysis capabilities at the precinct level. Over $14 million of Federal Crime Bill
funding also enabled the department to fully implement a larger decentralized arrest processing
system project which would be critical to cutting arrest-to-arraignment time through the
implementation of videoconferencing, Livescan computerized fingerprinting, photo imaging and
enhancing the LAN network.

Continuing Challenges

New York City, according to FBI statistics, accounted for 61% of the total reduction in serious
crimes for the entire U.S. during the first six months of 1995. Although Commissioner Bratton and
his team could take satisfaction from this, it was clear that the job ahead would be made even more
challenging by budgetary limitations, possible changes in the process for arbitrating labor wage
disputes, restrictions on the deployment of resources, and the inability to reward good performance,
all combined with the need to achieve higher productivity. Corruption within the Department was
an issue that had to be given continuing attention. There was a persistent belief by some that the
price of crime reduction, in terms of reduced civil rights, was high. And finally, it had become
apparent that it would take much longer than two years to effect the attitude changes in the police
force that were sought. As consultant Linder commented, “It’s clear that the message hasn’t filtered
down into the ranks.” But it would be difficult to sustain the high-intensity effort that had
characterized Bratton’s first two years in office.

All of this had to be achieved in an organization that had to be operated within constraints
imposed by its public-sector nature. Exhibit 6 represents one view of basic differences between
management in the NYPD and private-sector organizations.

Budgetary Limitations

Non-discretionary accounts dominated the Department’s annual budget of about $2.3 billion,
as shown in Exhibit 7. They covered salaries, overtime, shift differentials, uniform allowances,
annuity payments and holiday pay for employees, and resulted largely from head counts that were
mandated by Safe Streets, Safe City and other legislation as well as wage policies that were
determined in large part by linkages between 81 labor contracts that the City had with various labor
unions, including the police officers’ union.

In discussions with the Mayor, it was clear that City Hall expected savings from payroll and
other sources of at least $20 to $30 million in 1996. This was on top of budgetary constraints that had
been placed on the Department’s OTPS (other than personal services) accounts in 1994 and 1995. In
an effort to maintain the size of the police force in service, as promised by the Mayor in his election
campaign, the OTPS budget had been cut by 30% (down to $95 million) for fiscal 1996. This had to
cover expenditures for such items as supplies, equipment, telephones, fuel, and rent. Some of the
results were almost laughable. Jack Maple, for example, pointed out that his unit couldn’t afford the
supplies needed to display crime information in his office.

Perhaps the most significant cuts in discretionary budgets had come from overtime
reduction. This account had been reduced from $113 million in 1993 to $79 million in 1995. While
this had helped the Department meet its budget goals, it had hurt morale among frontline officers in
the Department who could no longer count on overtime income to help with such things as mortgage
payments.

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It was quite possible that the Mayor was ready to consider reductions in the size of the police
force, although it would be politically difficult for him to allow any of those reductions in the number
of police on patrol. His attitude toward head count had begun to change with the possible expiration
of the Safe Streets, Safe City initiative, and a significant change in the arbitration process for the City’s
negotiations with its police and firefighters unions which could increase pay levels significantly.
When queried about whether he was ready to abandon the staffing level of 38,310 mandated by
legislation, the Mayor had pointed out that, because of attrition, the Department typically operated
for most of the year at levels up to 1,800 persons fewer than those mandated.

Labor Contract Dispute Arbitration

Led by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of New York City, the State Legislature had
passed and sent to the Governor for signature legislation shifting responsibility for contract dispute
arbitration from the City’s Office of Collective Bargaining to the State Public Employment Relations
Board. It was thought that this action would result in larger salary increases from future arbitration.
In its deliberations, the City’s agency was required to consider such things as the City’s ability to pay
awards. In contrast, the State agency was required to take into consideration pay levels of
communities surrounding New York City, which were as much as 35% higher than those in the City.

The bill, although vetoed previously by the Governor, had passed with only 8 legislators out
of 200 opposing it. Previously, union officials had said they would make passage of the bill a litmus
test for lawmakers when they allocated their much-coveted political campaign contributions.

The Mayor publicly had expressed his opposition to the bill and had asked the Governor not
to sign it, weathering the criticism of the unions that had supported his political campaign. Privately,
he had discussed with Commissioner Bratton whether or not deeper budget cuts would be required if
the legislation were to be enacted. On January 25, alongside the report of the progress of the
legislation, The New York Times reported that:

Preliminarily, the Mayor has ordered each of his agencies to cut their
budgets for the next fiscal year by 7.5 percent, although he has not said that each
would have to cut that much. For the Police Department, a cut that size would total
$170 million, from a $2.3 billion budget. It remained unclear yesterday what other
cuts, if any, (other than 1,000 personnel from the Department yielding estimated
savings of $20 to $30 million) would be considered for the Police Department.8

Possible Sources of Staffing Reductions

If staffing reductions were required, the Commissioner could achieve them through attrition,
which occurred at the rate of about 1,600 police officers and 500 civilians annually, and a
postponement of the starting date for the Police Academy class that graduated about 1,800 new
recruits each year. The latter would, however, slow down Bratton’s efforts to improve the overall
quality of Department personnel by imposing tougher entry standards and an improved training
program.

This might also require combining positions and moving more officers from “desk jobs” to
patrols. In 1995 alone, 500 officers were freed for patrol work who had previously staffed public
affairs, personnel, and payroll units prior to the merger of New York City’s three police forces.

8 Steven Lee Meyers, “Giuliani Weighing Cuts to Police To Help Decrease Budget Deficit,” The New York Times,
January 25, 1996, pp. Al and B3.

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Restrictions on Resource Deployment

The Safe Streets, Safe City initiative, which established staffing targets for each precinct of the
City, was a reflection of a general feeling on the part of residents that each precinct should have its
“fair share” of police protection. These targets, which reflected conditions in the City in 1989,
influenced the assignment of Police Academy graduates. As a result, precinct staffing levels were
difficult to adjust to reflect changing police needs. (See Exhibit 8 for demographic and crime
statistics as well as staffing levels for four precincts and Exhibit 9 for a precinct map of the City.)
Most people still had not accepted the argument that crime reduction in heavily impacted crime areas
would lead to less crime in low-crime neighborhoods, just as many had trouble believing that
searches of those committing minor misdemeanors would eventually lead to reductions in serious
crimes.

According to Jack Maple, while specialized units, such as Street Crime (plain clothes),
Narcotics, and Vice, could be moved from one precinct to another for 30 days at a time, fully 18,000
frontline patrol personnel “couldn’t be moved at a whim.”

Nevertheless, he cited the 9th Precinct experience as evidence that moving specialized units
worked. He pointed out that the Precinct had started out the first four months of 1995 with major
crimes 50% over the previous year. By the end of the year, with the redeployment of specialized
units to the Precinct, such crimes were down 4%. Drawing on his extensive reading of military
history, Maple cited British use of radar in WWII in defending against enemy aircraft as a model for
what the Department should strive for. It provided the RAF with a way of deploying its personnel
and equipment quickly.

While attempting to maintain adequate headcount in personnel assigned to precincts,
Commissioner Bratton was contemplating assigning 750 of the 1,800 March, 1996 graduates of the
Police Academy class to replace more-experienced officers reassigned to the Mayor’s announced
effort to wage an all-out war against drugs in Brooklyn North. The resulting specialized units would
be assigned to ten precincts in which drug-dealing was especially high. This, of course, would make
it more difficult to replace frontline personnel in the remaining precincts.

The Brooklyn North initiative would involve the temporary reassignment of 1,200 officers
from elsewhere in the Department to the shaded area outlined in Exhibit 9. Reassignments would be
made from all bureaus. The initiative had created an air of anticipation and excitement in the
Department. It was also thought to be a test of conventional thinking regarding restrictions on the
deployment of resources.

Rewarding Performance

Jack Maple pointed out that police officers hadn’t had a raise in spite of their increasing levels
of effectiveness. The situation had been made more tense by the fact that the City Council had voted
senior City officials, including a small number of Police Department officials, pay raises up to 20% as
of July, 1995. These officials hadn’t received pay raises for eight years.

Union labor contracts and civil service statutes made it very difficult to reward outstanding
performance. The primary form of monetary incentives was provided by overtime, which had been
reduced significantly through the application of stricter management accountability as well as the
increased use of technology.

Other forms of recognition commonly employed within the Department were the temporary
assignment of patrol officers to work with detective squads for 30 days and other preferred
assignments. More often, a simple letter of recognition was written.

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Increased Productivity

A declining budget would require increased productivity if the Department was to meet its
goal for 1996. Staffing data for major U.S. cities is presented in Exhibit 10.

Along with the increased use of information and technology, more controversial means could
be attempted to improve productivity. For example, officers could be freed up for other tasks by
replacing two-person patrols with one officer. But the outcry from officers, who had fought hard for
two-person patrols on the grounds of increased safety, would be great.

Addressing Rising Complaints

With increased enforcement activities and personnel, there had been a 32% increase in 1994
in the number of complaints about police brutality, unfair treatment of citizens by police, and police
corruption over the past two years. The Department’s analysis of its information disclosed that:

. . . In 1994 . . . 4 million calls for service were answered in person by officers,
227,453 arrests were made, 5.4 million summonses were written—with a total of
9,922 complaints made by the public for police misconduct. Of the 2,152 cases
reviewed in 1994 by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent arm of
city government, 5.1% (or 111 cases) were determined by CCRB to be worthy of
prosecution in the Department’s disciplinary process.

In February 1995, the Mayor created an independent citizens monitor, the Commission to
Combat Police Corruption. At the time, plans already were underway in the Department to take
steps to correct a situation disclosed in an early-1994 survey of Department personnel that found that
“a long-standing, high-level concern about avoiding scandal and criticism had created within the
NYPD a culture of organizational fear, self-protection, secrecy, and exclusion—which existed
alongside continuing, everyday heroic action by individual members of the service.”

Rooting Out Corruption

On June 14, 1995 Police Strategy No. 7: Rooting Out Corruption; Building Organizational
Integrity in the New York Policy Department, was published. One of the biggest challenges of this
initiative was described in the Strategy as follows:

. . . contemporary corruption in the NYPD occurs in pockets which, despite
universal disapproval among honest officers, are protected by the “blue wall of
silence.” The tradition of not “ratting” on colleagues is common in most professions,
but it is even more pronounced in police and military organizations where members
sometimes rely on each other for physical survival. Mutual protection under violent
circumstances becomes mutual protection under all . . . The “us versus them”
attitude often called the “blue cocoon” can seem to condone disrespect of the public
and even abuse of force in these same police and military organizations.

To counteract these tendencies, efforts were initiated to energize the Department’s own
investigative group, the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). This was to be done by changing the entire
dynamic by which the IAB interacted with Department personnel. In the past, the relationship had
been one of distrust, involving obsessive secrecy on the part of the IAB and an unwillingness to
cooperate on the part of police officers. To change it, efforts were underway by the IAB to: (1)
involve every command level in reducing corruption and brutality, (2) make available within the
department monthly reports for each command on complaints broken down to the level of the

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precinct and even tour of duty, (3) computerize master profiles of individual officers that cross-
referenced data on corruption, brutality, and discourtesy complaints with that regarding record of
sick leave, emergency excusal, arrest activity, commendations, and disciplinary actions, (4) provide
training to those in command positions about the detection of patterns leading to corruption. As part
of a more proactive approach to deterrence, the IAB was encouraged to observe officers as they
interacted with IAB officers posing as civilians who might provide opportunities to commit crimes.
In addition, the IAB would continue to initiate parallel investigations of complaints brought before
the Civilian Complaint Review Board and implement Commissioner Bratton’s order to stop giving
one day’s notice for random drug tests, which had enabled those tested to prepare.

To support the new policy of inclusion concerning issues of corruption, Strategy No. 7 set
forth a new policy advocating consideration of a commander’s entire record of performance rather
than the career-ending loss of command that previously often had resulted when corruption was
discovered in any of their units.

Sustaining the Effort

There was some question about whether the efforts of the first two years could be sustained,
especially by a Department whose personnel had not received pay raises. As Jack Maple put it:
“Armies like to fight short wars. We’re slowin’ down.”

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Exhibit 1xxxReport of Crime Trends in Major U.S. Cities

The percentage decrease in crime for New York City for 1995 vs. 1993 was 25.9%. This
compared with a percentage decrease for the 27 of the 29 largest cities (excluding New York and
Chicago) of 5.4%.

Total Crime Index for 29 Largest Cities, Listed in Order of Population

City 1993 1995 + – %

New York 600,346 444,758 -25.9%

Los Angeles 312,790 266,204 -14.9%

Chicago * * *

Houston 141,179 131,602 -6.8%

Philadelphia 97,659 108,278 +10.9%

San Diego 85,227 64,235 -24.6%

Phoenix 96,476 118,126 +22.4%

Dallas 110,803 98,624 -11.0%

Detroit 122,329 119,065 -2.7%

San Antonio 97,671 79,931 -18.2%

San Jose 36,743 36,096 -1.8%

Indianapolis 33,530 30,775 -8.2%

Las Vegas 48,367 60,178 +24.4%

San Francisco 67,345 60,474 -10.2%

Baltimore 91,920 94,855 +3.2%

Jacksonville 67,494 61,129 -9.4%

Columbus 58,604 58,715 +1.9%

Milwaukee 50,435 52,679 +4.4%

Memphis 62,150 65,597 +5.5%

Washington, D.C. 66,758 67,402 +1.0%

El Paso 46,738 41,692 -10.8%

Boston 55,555 52,278 -6.0%

Seattle 62,679 55,507 -11.4%

Nashville 55,500 56,090 +1.0%

Austin 51,468 42,586 -17.6%

Denver 39,796 34,769 -12.6%

Cleveland 40,006 38,665 -3.4%

New Orleans 52,773 53,399 +1.2%

Fort Worth 49,801 39,667 -20.3%

TOTAL 2,101,796 1,988,408 -5.4%

*Note: Data for Chicago is not included because of reporting differences.

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Exhibit 2xxx Excerpts from the Communication to Police Describing Police Strategy 5: Reclaiming
the Public Spaces of New York

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Exhibit 2 (continued)

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Exhibit 3xxxNYPD Structure and “Head Counts,” By Position, January, 1996; and Staffing Levels,
August, 1990 to March, 1996

Management Structure

The top management responsibilities in the NYPD were divided among uniformed managers
called chiefs and civilian managers called deputy commissioners. Although there were important
exceptions, the uniformed chiefs were primarily responsible for police operations and the civilian deputy
commissioners oversaw various support functions such as budget, planning, community affairs and
technology development.

The Police Commissioner, a civilian appointed by the mayor, was the chief executive officer of the
police department with a wide range of responsibilities outside and inside the organization.

The Chief of Department was a four-star chief, the highest uniformed rank in the NYPD. He ran
the day-to-day policing business. Reporting directly to the Chief of Department were five three-star
bureau chiefs, also known as superchiefs, responsible for the Patrol Services Bureau, the Transit Bureau,
and the Housing Bureau.

The Patrol Services Bureau (PSB) managed the 76 precinct commands which were overseen by
eight borough commands. (Staffing: 20,838 uniformed personnel and 2,045 civilian personnel).

The Detective Bureau was the investigative arm of the department. There were detective squads
in each of the precincts (usually commanded by a lieutenant) and reporting to detective borough
commands. The borough commands also oversaw homicide and major crime squads. A traditional
problem in the department had been a lack of coordination between detective and patrol operations
because they had separate reporting structures in separate bureaus. (Staffing: 3,385 uniformed personnel
and 305 civilian personnel).

The Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB) was established in 1971 on the heels of the Knapp
Commission scandals to place all corruption-prone enforcement functions under a single, centralized
command. Like the detective bureau, OCCB had a separate command structure, including divisions for
Narcotics, Vice Enforcement, Auto Crime, and Organized Crime Investigations. (Staffing: 2,141
uniformed police and 108 civilians).

The Transit Bureau policed the city’s vast subway system. The Transit patrol force worked out of
12 district commands supervised by four borough commands. The Transit Bureau also maintained a
Homeless Outreach Unit, a Canine Unit and a Vandals Squad. (Staffing: 3,270 uniformed police and 181
civilians).

The Housing Bureau maintained nine police service areas (PSAs) to police the 330 public housing
developments operated by the New York City Public Housing Authority. (Staffing: 2,155 uniformed
police and 178 civilians).

Also reporting to the Chief of Department were the Operations Division, which managed major
events and disaster response, and the Support Services Bureau, headed by a civilian director and
responsible for the auto fleet, the property clerk, and other support services.

The reporting relationships described above were the formal ones. In practice, the Police
Commissioner met with many managers besides his direct reports, and the deputy commissioners, bureau
chiefs, and borough chiefs gathered for weekly executive staff meetings with the Police Commissioner,
First Deputy Commissioner, and Chief of Department.

Uniform Rank Structure

Police officers had a defined civil service career path. Up to the rank of captain, promotion was
controlled by civil service exams for each rank. The entry rank was police officer and the successive ranks
were sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. The department’s 37,171 uniformed personnel, as of January, 1996
included 25,909 police officers, 4,229 sergeants, 1,365 lieutenants, and 391 captains. The ranks above
captain were discretionary, but no one who had not attained the rank of captain could serve in them.

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There were 120 deputy inspectors, 65 inspectors, 27 deputy chiefs (one-star), 17 assistant chiefs (two-star),
eight bureau chiefs (three-star) and one chief of department (four-star).

The title of detective was not a rank but a discretionary designation. Detectives were paid more
than police officers of comparable rank and served in three grades, with Detective Third Grade being the
lowest and Detective First Grade being the highest. Detectives retained their underlying civil service title
(i.e. police officer). Most detectives served in the Detective Bureau, although there were numerous
exceptions serving in other investigative and specialist assignments. There were about 5,000 detectives in
the NYPD.

Most of the department’s personnel were represented by unions, including all uniformed
personnel up to and including the rank of deputy chief. Police officers were represented by the
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (LBA) and captains and all higher unionized ranks by the Captains
Endowment Association (CEA). Among 37,171 uniformed personnel there were only 25 positions that are
not unionized.

About 85 percent of the department’s 6,800 civilian employees, including most clerical workers and the 911
operators, were represented by various locals of District Council 37, the union which represented the
largest share of New York City municipal workers. About 10 percent were represented by the Teamsters
Union, with the balance represented by the Communication Workers Union and other unions. Only 83
civilian managers were not unionized.

Staffing Levels, August, 1990 to March, 1996

Personnel Pool
August 22, 1990

(Pre-Safe Streets)
February 28, 1994
(Post-Safe Streets)

March 31, 1995
(Pre-Merger)

March 4, 1996
(Post-Merger)a

NYPD 25,465 31,532 29,985 32,134
Transit 4,288 4,216 4,280 3,139
Housing 2,200 2,565 2,804 2,038

Total uniform 31,953 38,311 37,069 37,311
Civilian 7,722 7,746 7,137 7,183
Total department 39,675 46,057 44,206 44,494

aTransit merged April 1, 1995; Housing merged May 1, 1995.

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Exhibit 6xxxA Comparison of NYPD Operations and Private Sector Operations

Budget

As a city agency, the Police Department did not control either its operating or capital budget.
Especially in difficult fiscal times, the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, in negotiation with
the department, set the budget goals and timetables. Budget cutting was a special challenge in the
NYPD because 96 percent of the $2.3 billion budget went for salaries, including 87 percent for
uniformed salaries. In recent years the cuts had come from either civilian attrition or from other than
personnel services (OTPS).

Press

The NYPD received more press scrutiny than any private business and all but a few public
agencies. Seven reporters worked full time in police headquarters. The tabloids and the local TV
stations filled from a quarter to half their space with crime stories. What police did was news, what
police didn’t do was news, what police did wrong was big news. Business was conducted in a
fishbowl, and it was easy to be distracted from the primary missions of the organization by the
heavily covered issue of the day.

Civil Service

The civil service rules constrained management from many practices common in private
business. In the lower ranks, people who did good work couldn’t be rewarded with promotions.
People who were good at exams were offered were the most likely to advance to the captain’s rank.
On the other hand, some high performers in the field might spend their entire careers as police
officers or detectives. Because their titles were discretionary, detectives were an exception to this
rule. A first grade detective might be paid as much as lieutenant without passing any exams.

Union

The police unions has considerable political power especially at the state level. In response to
union prompting, the New York State legislature had passed a number of laws enhancing the
privileges of police officers and restricting the power of the police commissioner and other police
managers.

The Public

The NYPD was accountable to the public at every level. The Police Commissioner, as a
mayoral appointee, and the NYPD, as a department of the city government, were directly
accountable to the Mayor. The department personnel also interacted with many other elected
officials from the state and city governments. Precinct commanders attended community board
meetings and regularly met with a variety of community representatives. And of course, police
officers on patrol interacted with millions of civilians each year. There was an independent Civilian
Complaint Review Board which made recommendations to the Police Commissioner in cases where
civilians had complained of police misconduct.

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NYPD New 396-293

25

Exhibit 7xxxNew York Police Department Budgets, Fiscal 1994-1996

Budgets (in thousands)

FISCAL 1994 FISCAL 1995 FISCAL 1996

Personal Service 1,656,371 1,930,906 2,167,000
Other Than Personal Service 89,026 120,454 95,2

28

TOTAL 1,745,397 2,051,360 2,262,228

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396-293 NYPD New

26

Exhibit 8xxxDemographic and Crime Statistics for Four Police Precincts, New York City,
1995 vs. 1993

1995 Demographic Data
Precinct 014 Precinct 046 Precinct 075 Precinct 103

Population 17162 118435 161387 92559
Total Households 7814 37369 49183 27445

– with persons < 18 yrs 6.68% 55.02% 52.10% 46.73% same house > 5yrs (%) 44.81% 54.77% 62.10% 60.50%

median household income $31,860 $14,605 $20,682 $30,092
per capita $23,804 $6,428 $8,013 $10,860

households with public
assist (%)

5.52% 36.53% 25.03% 13.96%

persons below poverty 25.52% 44.08% 30.79% 17.10%
families below poverty 10.07% 42.62% 29.00% 13.93%

persons over 3 yrs 17226 110276 152095 88289
pre-primary % 0.59% 1.60% 1.60% 1.27%
elem or HS % 3.99% 26.33 24.55% 20.50%

college % 12.55% 7.49% 6.88% 9.24%
males less than 16 8774 34670 49399 32494

males unemp % 7.07% 12.26% 9.91% 8.08%
females less than 16 7813 45319 64848 37910

female unemp % 5.82% 7.22% 6.49% 6.69%
persons 16 – 19 505 8086 11378 5417

1995
Seven Crimes:

Murder 4 43 44 16
Rape 39 100 144 69

Robbery 1329 1591 2397 1488
Assault 470 1085 1280 787

Burglary 1893 1857 1531 1055
Gr. Larceny 6315 646 918 985

Gr. Larc. Auto 253 588 1717 1088
TOTAL 10303 5910 8031 5488

Year – End Personnel
Head Count: Uniform 433 346 403 286

Civilian 38 27 26

27

1993
Seven Crimes:

Murder 11 64 126 28
Rape 41 82 122 74

Robbery 2520 2132 3152 1742
Assault 670 1086 1474 853

Burglary 2687 2365 1854 1166
Gr. Larceny 9365 961 965 1214

Gr. Larc. Auto 356 875 2665 1591
TOTAL 15650 7515 10355 6668

Year – End Personnel
Head Count: Uniform 395 293 348 256

Civilian 51 27 30 35

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NYPD New 396-293
27

Exhibit 9xxxA Map of New York City Police Precincts

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396-293 NYPD New
28

Exhibit 10xxxPolice Staff Ratios for Major U.S. Cities, 1995

City Population
# Uniform

Employees

Employees
Per 100,000
Population

Washington, D.C. 570,000 4,106 720
New York 7,336,224 36,606a 499
Chicago 2,802,494 12,971 463
Philadelphia 1,560,576 6,101 391
Houston 1,758,016 4,935 281
Dallas 1,062,677 2,777 261
San Francisco 741,568 1,823 246
Los Angeles 3,50,381 7,869 222
Phoenix 1,076,108 2,088 194
San Antonio 999,900 1,969 170
San Diego 1,168,785 1,972 169
San Jose 815,235 1,209 148

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KS1029

Case Number 1588.0

This case was written by Susan Rosegrant for Richard Falkenrath, Assistant Professor in Public Policy, and Arnold Howitt,

Executive Director, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, for use at the Executive Session on Domestic

Preparedness, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Funding was provided by the Office of Justice

Programs, US Department of Justice. (0800)

Copyright © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce

materials, call 617-495-9523, fax 617-495-8878, email cp_sales@harvard.edu, or write the Case Program Sales Office,

Kennedy School of Government, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, revised, translated, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any

means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the Case Program

Sales Office at the Kennedy School of Government

The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots (C)

In many respects, it was not surprising that Governor Pete Wilson would offer the services of the

California National Guard to help quell the riots that had engulfed South Central Los Angeles. The Guard had

played a prominent role in responding to civil disturbances during the 1960s, with more than 13,000 troops

deployed during the Watts riots alone. As in other parts of the country, Guard troops had also been mobilized to

respond to anti-Vietnam protests and other student demonstrations in the 1960s and early 1970s.

But over the following two decades, federal and state support to fund National Guard preparedness for

civil disturbance responses had tailed off as law enforcement agencies’ need for military support seemed to lessen.

Beginning in 1989, staff officers from the Guard had attended a series of meetings with the state Office of

Emergency Services (OES) and other law enforcement groups, in part to discuss the National Guard role in mutual

aid. Based on the meetings, some officials at the National Guard headquarters concluded that the state’s improved

mutual aid system had largely negated the need for Guard troops to respond to civil unrest. As stated in the OES

Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Plan, dated October 1991, “Normally, military support will be provided to local

jurisdictions only after a request is made by the chief executive of a city or county or sheriff of a county, and only

after the disturbance has been determined to be, or to likely become, beyond the capabilities of local law

enforcement forces, as supplemented by forces made available under the existing mutual aid agreements.” Under

the mutual aid plan, therefore, a police department such as the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) would first

call on the Sheriff’s Department and other local agencies before considering state or federal resources.

Based on these funding and priority changes, Guard forces slated to receive civil disturbance training were

cut from 10,000 to only 5,000, and, according to some observers, scant attention was paid to whether even that

number of troops were trained. As in the city of Los Angeles, most civil emergency preparedness focused on

natural disasters, and, in particular, earthquakes. Moreover, other activities took priority, such as military

preparedness for overseas operations—including the Gulf War in 1991—and the war on drugs. Nevertheless, notes

Richard Andrews, former OES director, although Guard officials may have believed that their future role in civil

disturbances would be limited to administrative or logistical support, Guard mission statements still clearly stated

the need to maintain readiness for a riot response (see Exhibit A for a list of key players involved in the civil

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HKS Case Program 2 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

disturbance response). “Nobody would ever have told them there is no chance that this will ever happen again,”

Andrews declares.1

During the trial of the police officers accused of beating Rodney King, the Guard had received signals that

there could be serious trouble in Los Angeles. LAPD Commander Bayan Lewis had passed along his unofficial

warning of a possible disturbance, for example, and had borrowed more than 300 sets of helmets and flak vests. In

addition, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) had called about using the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center

south of Los Angeles as a possible staging area in case of an outbreak. Still, because of the revised understanding of

its role, and the fact that there had been no official request from Los Angeles law enforcement agencies or OES to

be on alert, the state National Guard made no special preparations during the trial.

At about 8:30 p.m. on April 29, however, Wilson’s office called the Adjutant General of the California

National Guard, Major General Robert Thrasher, to let him know that the governor was considering calling up the

Guard (see Exhibit B for a chronology of events during the riots). A half hour later, at Mayor Bradley’s request, the

governor authorized the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to help restore order in Los Angeles. “As the

seriousness of the situation started to become evident, everybody recognized that putting the National Guard on

the street would send a very strong message,” says Richard Andrews. Thrasher quickly called Andrews, hoping to

learn more details about the Guard’s mission, but Andrews could only promise to check with the LAPD and the

Sheriff’s Department for more information.2 At 9:15, Thrasher ordered the troop mobilization. No specific time had

been set for soldiers to be on the streets, but Thrasher told the governor’s staff that troops would be “in their

armories” in about six hours.

At 10:13, Richard Andrews of OES arranged the first in what would be a series of conference calls, usually

including the same individuals: Governor Wilson, General Thrasher, Mayor Bradley, Sheriff Sherman Block, Police

Chief Daryl Gates, and CHP Commissioner Maurice Hannigan. The riots, according to Gates, had spread to an area

of about 45 to 50 square miles, and there were 400 to 500 police in the area. Sheriff Block also reported spreading

unrest, and what he described as a “Mardi Gras” like atmosphere in the streets in some areas of the county. 3

Nevertheless, neither Gates nor Block felt the National Guard was needed, although when pressed by the

governor, they endorsed the call-up. Both officials, however, welcomed the CHP’s offer of 1,500 officers, whom

they planned to use for tasks such as securing the perimeters of riot-torn areas. “The Highway Patrol was a very

highly professional, very disciplined organization,” says Andrews, “and not a territorial threat.”4

1 Richard Andrews interview with writer, March 27, 2000. Subsequent comments by Andrews are from the same interview.
2 Under the mutual aid system, when a local government requested assistance from the Guard, OES provided the mission

assignment.
3 Lt. Gen. William H. Harrison (US Army Ret.), Assessment of the Performance of the California National Guard During the

Civil Disturbances in Los Angeles, April & May 1992, Report to the Honorable Pete Wilson, Governor, State of California
(Sacramento, CA: October 2, 1992), p. A-7.

4 The Sheriff’s Department earlier that evening had already asked for 50 CHP officers to help return prisoners who had
escaped from an honor farm north of Los Angeles.

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HKS Case Program 3 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

As it turned out, the CHP—one of whose missions was to assist local law enforcement—was well prepared

to take action. According to then Chief Edward Gomez, commander of the CHP’s Southern Division overseeing Los

Angeles County, the agency had taken the possibility of a disturbance seriously, and more than a month before the

trial ended had drafted a contingency plan, dubbed the Red Plan, that mandated different levels of response

depending on the extent of any unrest. A Level One response, for example, would commit as many as 400 of the

approximately 1,000 officers in the Southern Division to a disturbance; Level Two would draw in additional officers

from neighboring divisions; and Level Three would deploy officers from around the state.

Gomez initiated the Red Plan as soon as the judge in the Rodney King beating trial gave notice that the

verdicts would be announced in two hours. Along with his top officers, Gomez watched the verdicts being read,

then immediately called a tactical alert, which put officers on 12-hour shifts and alerted them to wear riot gear.

“You can’t get in trouble by having too many people ready and available,” Gomez asserts. “You can always de-

escalate and send them home if after six hours nothing happens.”5 Even before Gates and Block accepted the

officers, the Red Plan had moved to Level Three, and the CHP was ready to support local law enforcement in large

numbers as needed.

Other than accepting the CHP officers, though, Gates made almost no use of outside law enforcement

agencies in the first hours of the riot. During the conference call, Sheriff Block offered Gates 500 deputies, but—

reminiscent of the Watts riots experience—Gates refused the offer, preferring not to rely on his rival, and still

believing that the LAPD would regain control on its own. After Gates’s negative response, Block, as regional

coordinator of the mutual aid plan, turned down several offers of help from other area law enforcement agencies

during the tumultuous first night of rioting, assuming that Gates would not be interested. The only local police

forces tapped by the LAPD were the Rapid Transit District Police and the University of California-Los Angeles Police

Department, both forces with which the LAPD had had substantial interactions in the past.

Nor did the LAPD make good use of the CHP that first night. Although some officers were sent to escort

firefighters, about 120 CHP officers who had been available in Los Angeles since 9 p.m. watched television at their

headquarters all night because they were given nothing to do, and in the midst of the chaos, neither the sheriff’s

office nor the LAPD could immediately find tasks for the 1,500 officers CHP Commissioner Hannigan had offered.

Gates, meanwhile, spent much of the first night touring the streets of Los Angeles with a driver and aide, finally

reporting to the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at 6:00 a.m. “Daryl was a very dedicated police officer,

but if he had two shortcomings, one was what many people would call arrogance, and the other was his absolute

unbridled belief that the LAPD could and would handle anything,” says former Los Angeles City Fire Chief Donald

Manning. “He couldn’t come to grips with the fact that his people couldn’t and weren’t handling the whole thing.”

5 Edward Gomez interview with writer, March 28, 2000. Subsequent comments by Gomez are from the same interview.

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HKS Case Program 4 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

A Flawed Mobilization

The National Guard deployment began with many questions unanswered. Although the conference call

participants had agreed on a target time of 4:00 p.m. the next day for getting troops on the streets, no one had

declared which agency would coordinate the Guard’s involvement, decided what its missions would be, or

estimated how many more troops ultimately might be called. In addition, some of the officials involved, including

Sheriff Block and Police Chief Gates, felt the Guard had been called up prematurely. After all, says Sheriff’s

Lieutenant Dennis Beene, a team leader at the county Emergency Operations Center, “there were about 20,000

police officers and deputies in this county, looking at the LAPD, the deputies, and the other 46 city agencies. Had

we managed those resources properly, we would not have needed anybody from outside to deal with what we

had.”6 Nevertheless, with the riot spreading, and no evidence that the LAPD had the situation under control,

Mayor Bradley and Governor Wilson pushed forward on the Guard deployment.

The initial mobilization went well. The troops chosen for deployment—members of the 40th Infantry

Division (Mechanized) based near Los Angeles—responded quickly, and almost the entire contingent of 2,000

soldiers had reported to about ten armories in the city area by 4:00 a.m. Although the state Guard headquarters

apparently had not anticipated the mobilization, many individual soldiers who had been watching television felt it

likely that they would be deployed, and one colonel had even placed his brigade on alert.7

Once the troops reported, however, the Guard’s lack of focus on civil disturbance preparedness became

evident. Unknown to General Thrasher and the governor’s office, for example, most of the troops hadn’t had

adequate training to respond to a riot. The contingent with the most civil disturbance training—the 49th Military

Police Brigade, based in the San Francisco Bay Area—was judged too far away to deploy. As a result, commanders

at the armories hastily conducted basic riot training as troops assembled. In addition, all soldiers had to read and

sign a copy of the Rules of Engagement that Guard headquarters had hastily prepared (for a copy of the Rules of

Engagement, see Exhibit C). The rules were intended to emphasize the importance of restraint, so that soldiers

wouldn’t leave themselves open to charges, such as those that arose after the Watts riots, of having fired on

rioters without adequate cause.

But the real holdup was the fact that there was not enough ammunition or basic equipment, such as flak

vests, face shields, and riot batons, for the troops to deploy. Until recently, ammunition had been stored at the

local armories—enough to supply the soldiers, at least initially. But earlier that year, as part of a Guard re-

evaluation of storage practices, ammunition at scattered sites had been consolidated at Camp Roberts, a National

Guard base about 230 miles north of Los Angeles. Alerted to the shortfall, headquarters ordered a helicopter to

pick up adequate ammunition from the base and deliver it to the staging area at the Los Alamitos Reserve Center,

about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, by 8:00 a.m., April 30. A second helicopter would bring the necessary

equipment from Camp San Luis Obispo, located about 50 miles south of Camp Roberts.

6 Dennis Beene interview with writer, March 29, 2000. Subsequent comments by Beene are from the same interview.
7 James D. Delk, Fires & Furies: The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications, 1995), pp. 40-41.

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HKS Case Program 5 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

A combination of poor communication, inexperience, and bad judgment, however, badly delayed the

delivery. To begin with, staff members at Guard headquarters responsible for getting the ammunition to the troops

continued to operate under the assumption that having soldiers ready by 4:00 p.m. the second day of the riots—a

response time of 19 hours from first alert to mobilization—would be adequate. As a result, instead of having one

helicopter take ammunition directly from Camp Roberts to Los Alamitos— allowing those soldiers with adequate

equipment to deploy—while a second helicopter traveled to Camp San Luis Obispo, the staff decided to save on

aircraft and flight crews and redirected the first helicopter to make the equipment pickup as well.

Other glitches further slowed the drop-off. Because crew members were transporting tear gas grenades,

they had to bring gas masks, which took extra time to locate. At Camp Roberts, they had to refuel the helicopter at

a point distant from the ammunition. By the time the supplies were trucked to the aircraft, it was already 7:15, just

45 minutes before the helicopter was originally to have delivered its load to Los Alamitos. The crew, which had no

experience in loading pallets of ammunition, didn’t bring rollers to help transfer the loads, nor did the helicopter

winch system work properly, so crew members ultimately loaded the pallets by hand. To make matters worse, the

crew learned that some of the tear gas grenades on board were out of date. By the time they had unloaded part of

the ammunition, located the bad grenades, found new ones, rebanded the pallets, and reloaded the supplies, the

helicopter didn’t take off until 9:45 a.m., with the equipment pickup still to come.

At Camp San Luis Obispo, the setbacks continued. The equipment wouldn’t fit with what was already

loaded, so the crew once again had to remove some of the heavy ammunition in order to fit flak vests, riot batons,

and face shields on board. Then they had to wait for the arrival of lock plates, devices required by the federal

government in any civil disturbance response to keep the soldiers’ M16 rifles from firing on automatic. As a result,

the helicopter did not arrive at Los Alamitos until 1:50 p.m., almost six hours later than originally expected.

Remarkably, those responsible for delivering the ammunition and equipment also had apparently made no effort

to inform officials at Los Alamitos, the adjutant general’s office, or the governor’s office of the delay.

The Dawning of the Second Day

Had the riots subsided as daylight broke April 30, as most observers still predicted, the slower than

expected deployment of the National Guard might not have been an issue. Although Governor Wilson had

declared a state of emergency for all of Los Angeles County at 12:05 a.m. on April 30, and Mayor Bradley had

declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew for the South Central area at 12:15 a.m., Daryl Gates stated in a television

interview about a half hour later that not only was it unlikely that additional National Guard forces would be

called, he was not even convinced that the first 2,000 were needed. And although by morning, there had been nine

riot-related deaths and more than 150 injuries, the Metropolitan Division (Metro)—the LAPD unit with the most

crisis training and experience—had been given a 4:00 report time the second day, in order to give officers a chance

to rest before reporting back for duty, and under the assumption that they wouldn’t be needed until dark.8

8 Ultimately, Metro was called back two hours earlier, at 2:00.

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HKS Case Program 6 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

But the riots, which had already spread north and west during the night into downtown Los Angeles and

Koreatown, continued unabated—particularly in South Central. Rioters, looters, and arsonists didn’t follow the

pattern of previous incidents of unrest, and seemed to feel no compunction to wait until dark. According to a later

study, the uprising was fueled by an estimated 50,000 men in South Central between the ages of 16 and 34 who

were out of school, jobless, and had no father at home, and who were therefore free to join in the rioting with few

constraints.9 In addition, new weapons were flooding the streets. Despite Commander Bayan Lewis’s earlier

department advisory to guard gun stores, looters took 1,150 firearms from one unprotected store—including more

than 600 automatics or semi-automatics—and another 970 firearms from a pawn shop in the first night of the riots

alone. “There was nobody to cover them,” Lewis declares.10

The demographics of those involved in the rioting had also changed by the second day. While the first

night was in part a spontaneous expression of the African-American community’s rage at the Rodney King verdict—

manifested in the attacks of young black males on whites, Latinos, and Asians caught in the middle of the

outbreak—by the second day, looting had become an end in itself, and people of all races, ages, and gender were

taking part. Indeed, according to later records of those arrested during the disturbance, Latinos— in particular,

recent immigrants—outnumbered blacks. Furthermore, law enforcement officials reported seeing a number of

wealthy residents coming into the riot area to fill their cars with loot. “We witnessed people who drove down from

very affluent neighborhoods in this county with their Mercedes,” notes Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dennis Beene.

Amidst the spreading disturbance, the city’s seven major commercial television stations, which were

providing near 24-hour live coverage of the riots, continued to play a surprisingly powerful role. As in the first

hours of the unrest, television reports showing a lackluster or passive police presence emboldened potential

looters. One African-American woman later told a Washington Post correspondent that watching television

convinced her to go steal diapers, cans of food, and produce because she “…didn’t know if there were going to be

any stores standing.”11 Adds Terrance Manning, Los Angeles City Fire Department battalion commander, “You

could almost get a game plan off television, because they would gather concerns from the local officials about

where it was happening and what was happening. I think that gave a lot of direction to the rioters.”12

In addition, as bad as the rioting was, many observers felt that the media—and particularly television—

were exaggerating the extent of the rioting. The constant images of burning buildings and looting gave many

viewers the impression that all of South Central was going up in flames, and that vast areas of the city were

endangered. “People seeing that around the country and around the world thought that in every intersection in

Los Angeles you had people beating other people, you had them looting stores, you had them setting fire to

things,” says former Chief Gomez of the CHP. “I don’t think that’s good.”

9 Lou Cannon, Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD (Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1999), p. 350.
10 Bayan Lewis interview with writer, March 27, 2000. Subsequent comments by Lewis are from the same interview.
11 Ibid., p. 338.

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HKS Case Program 7 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Deploying the Guard

By mid-morning April 30, there was still confusion over the exact role of the National Guard, including

wildly different expectations about when they could and should deploy. At 10:00 a.m., for example, Mayor Bradley

told the City Council that Guard troops would be on the streets by noon. Minutes later, however, a state OES

liaison officer, who was unaware of the growing panic within the ciy, reconfirmed with the Guard Emergency

Operations Center the original mobilization target of 4:00 p.m. Around the same time, alarmed Sheriff’s

Department officials called out for a stronger law enforcement presence on the streets, and General Thrasher—

who hadn’t been told about the equipment and ammunition delay—phoned Sheriff Sherman Block and told him

that 2,000 National Guard troops were already in their armories and waiting to deploy.13 Shortly after 11:00,

meanwhile, Governor Wilson approved a Los Angeles County request that 2,000 more Guard troops be mobilized,

bringing the total to 4,000. Finally, during a noon conference call, Wilson pressed the LAPD and the Sheriff’s

Department to put Guard troops on the street as soon as possible, and Mayor Bradley called Wilson at 12:30 to

complain that soldiers still hadn’t been deployed.

As this was occurring, officials at Los Alamitos were still trying to sort out when to mobilize. An OES official

stationed at Los Alamitos had pointed out to Brigadier General James Delk, the Guard’s military field commander

who had arrived at Los Alamitos at 10:30 that morning, that there were still unused local law enforcement

resources that could be deployed at once, and Delk had passed that comment on to Guard headquarters in

Sacramento, with the implication that such regional mutual aid should be exhausted before calling out the Guard.

But when Undersheriff Bob Edmonds heard about Delk’s call, he angrily phoned the field commander and said the

Sheriff’s Department expected the Guard to be on the streets as soon as possible regardless of mutual aid

stipulations.14 Delk agreed to send the 40th Military Police Company out to meet sheriff’s escorts, but then

discovered the equipment had not yet arrived. After a scramble, ammunition was rounded up from the Guard’s

nearby drug interdiction force to fill in for the delayed delivery.

Faced with conflicting directions and information, frustrated Guard personnel at Los Alamitos called

Thrasher at 1:15 to find out who was in charge—the LAPD or the Sheriff’s Department. When Thrasher called

Undersheriff Edmonds at about 1:20 to clarify the chain of command, the general learned for the first time that his

troops were still waiting for equipment. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong with the National Guard

deployment,” says Richard Andrews of OES. “For whatever reason, there was not accurate, consistent information

12 Terrance Manning interview with writer, March 28, 2000. Subsequent comments by Manning are from the same

interview.
13 At around 10:00 a.m., Chief Gates finally accepted two platoons of about 112 deputies from the Sheriff’s Department, and

put them to work making arrests in South Central.
14 Delk later noted that the question about when to deploy did not slow down the actual mobilization.

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HKS Case Program 8 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

being provided up the chain of command within the National Guard as to what was going on. There were a lot of

people, Thrasher in particular, who were blindsided at almost every turn.”15

Delk, meanwhile, got two platoons ready to go by 1:30 p.m., but they didn’t leave Los Alamitos until

2:35—mainly because the Sheriff’s Department changed their mission. “We had never done anything with the

Guard, so the question was, ‘What are we going to do with them?’” recalls Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dennis Beene, who

was helping coordinate operations out of the county EOC. “Our platoon commanders out there had no idea how to

make use of these resources coming in. We’d never really trained together, never really talked together. What can

they do? It became a problem.”

The awkward and delayed deployment of the National Guard exacerbated mounting tensions over how

well the mutual aid system was working. During the early afternoon, Governor Wilson and other officials began to

call Thrasher, demanding to know why the Guard troops were not yet on the streets. “There was really no excuse

for their not moving faster in a time of what appeared to be genuine crisis, particularly in light of what it was that

held them up,” the former governor asserts. “I mean, the ammunition snafu—to me—was stupidity.”16 During a

conference call shortly after 2:00, officials finally agreed that the sheriff’s Emergency Operations Center would

coordinate National Guard missions, as dictated by the mutual aid plan. The group also agreed that troops should

be sent out even if they hadn’t installed lock plates on their M16s.17 The risk of misusing the guns appeared small

compared to the danger posed by the growing chaos in South Central.18

Protecting Firefighters

During Thursday morning, April 30, as officials tried to sort out when and how they could use the National

Guard, Fire Chief Donald Manning was struggling with a different problem: obtaining adequate protection for his

firefighters. By 10 a.m. that morning, the mutual aid system had brought in a total of 56 fire strike teams, including

11 from the county, 23 from Region I, and 22 from elsewhere in the state. But although the LAPD had finally

assigned a contingent of Metro officers and other police to help escort firefighters, there still weren’t enough to

protect all the firefighting resources needed to bring the wave of arson under control. As a result, some city

firefighters and mutual aid companies had been stuck waiting until escorts became available, or had gone out

15 In part because of misunderstandings caused by the conflicting accounts of the deployment issued by the governor’s press

office, the Guard public affairs office, and Guard staff at Los Alamitos, the governor’s staff finally requested May 4 that all
statements and releases about Guard activities be cleared with the governor’s press office. In fact, according to Richard
Andrews, the problems convinced OES to keep an unusually low press profile. “There was just so much confusion about
what was the chain of events from the time they got the order to deploy, and to exactly what occurred with the decisions
that were being made in the releases by the National Guard press office, that we made a decision not to add another
voice to the confusion,” he says.

16 Pete Wilson interview with writer, March 29, 2000. Subsequent comments by Wilson are from the same interview.
17 Although federal regulations clearly stated the need for lock plates in a civil disturbance, most Guard units didn’t have

them when they reported for duty.
18 Guard troops without lock plates supposedly were to be given only one bullet each, at the suggestion of Governor Wilson,

with more ammunition to be held by their squad leaders. In practice, however, this never happened, since Guard officials
believed such an approach would have subjected soldiers to unacceptable risk.

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HKS Case Program 9 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

without proper protection. “The night of the 29th going into the 30th was a very frightening night for fire

command,” former Chief Manning recalls. “We had a lot of people exposed out there, some of them being hurt

and others just being real lucky.”

Further compounding the problem, police had not proven to be ideal escorts. According to Terrance

Manning, many officers viewed the escort duty as less important than direct engagement with rioters, and in some

cases, police deserted the firefighters they were supposed to be protecting when they received a call for help from

another officer. There were also scheduling and jurisdictional conflicts. Police officers generally adhered strictly to

their 12-hour shifts, Manning says, and would leave at the end, even if that meant abandoning firefighters in the

middle of an engagement. Moreover, the police operated within rigid geographical boundaries, while the fire

department, by the nature of its operations, moved freely throughout the city as needed. As a result, firefighters

often lost their police escorts as they traveled from one area to another, and would have to continue unprotected

until police in the new jurisdiction were able to respond.

Unlike the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department, Donald Manning had no qualms about calling in the Guard.

In fact, Manning says, he welcomed any and all law enforcement resources that might bring the city back under

control so that firefighters could do their jobs safely and effectively. Moreover, during the Watts riots, the Guard

had provided fire escorts. Now, Manning wanted a similar guarantee that the Guard or some other agency would

take on the escort task.

At 11:00 Thursday morning, Chief Manning called a meeting at fire department headquarters that

included representatives from the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department, the National Guard, the Federal Bureau of

Investigation, and the California Highway Patrol. “I was desperate,” Manning says. “I would take anything.” As he

went around the table, Manning recalls, all the representatives turned him down—claiming either a lack of

resources or more pressing missions—until he reached CHP Commander Gomez. “Ed just kind of quietly leaned

forward and he said, ‘Don, what do you need?’” Manning says. “When I told him I needed about 300 officers, he

said, ‘You got it.’”

By 6:30 p.m., the CHP had deployed 300 officers as escorts—100 at the 54th and Arlington command, and

200 dispersed among four of the additional seven staging areas that Deputy Chief Donald Anthony had just

established throughout the city. The CHP escorts typically included three cars, with eight or nine officers and a

sergeant, Manning says, and the officers were not held to strict shift limitations, nor were they limited by

geographical boundaries. “That was a turning point for the fire service to be supported and protected to carry out

their mission,” Manning says. “And it seemed that the number of CHP officers was limitless, whatever was

needed.” Terrance Manning, who says the visual impact of the unchecked fires that first night drove rioters and

looters to new extremes, adds: “I strongly feel if we had had that same escort commitment in the first 24 hours, we

could have shortened this riot by a day-and-a-half.”

The Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD , which had become more organized during the second day of the

riots, had also found other jobs for the CHP, in particular, perimeter control, and providing escorts for fuel trucks,

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HKS Case Program 10 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

utility vehicles, county firefighters, and other city and county vehicles. By the evening of the 30th, there were some

2,500 CHP officers deployed in Los Angeles County.

Chaos Continued

Meanwhile, as the first Guard platoons finally began to deploy shortly after 2:30 that afternoon, Sheriff

Block, CHP Commissioner Hannigan, Chief Gates, and Guard Field Commander General James Delk, met to divide

up the duties of the various forces. With the Highway Patrol escorting firefighters and providing key perimeter

control, the group agreed that the National Guard would be responsible for most other missions required by the

Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD, including securing retail stores after police had established control, manning

traffic control points, and conducting area patrols. Since the Sheriff’s Department was to coordinate the mutual aid

response, all law enforcement organizations agreed to station representatives at the county EOC, already filled

beyond capacity with some 80 city and county representatives. Together, the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department

began to prioritize the flood of incoming requests from utilities, departments, and agencies for protective gear and

protection of key facilities.

As the situation on the street worsened, Governor Wilson announced at 4:00 p.m. that he would

personally fly to Los Angeles to make sure the Guard deployment moved forward quickly. At about the same time,

Mayor Bradley extended the dusk-to-dawn curfew from South Central to the entire city, as Gates had originally

wished. The curfew probably didn’t carry as much weight as it might have, however, since Bradley—apparently

concerned about inconveniencing the city’s business community—worded the announcement in such a way that

the curfew sounded voluntary. “I have agreed to impose this curfew citywide,” Bradley announced at an afternoon

press conference, “and I’m calling upon business people of this city to cooperate, asking that if you don’t have to

be on the streets of Los Angeles tonight after dark, please don’t go.”19 Some television stations duly reported the

curfew as voluntary, and it took hours for the mayor’s office to clear up the confusion.

Although the sheriff was supposed to be the top law enforcement official overseeing the mutual aid

response, this protocol was often ignored as the riots raged on. Mayor Bradley, furious over the Guard’s

deployment delay, continued to go straight to Governor Wilson with criticisms and requests. Similarly, the LAPD

often gave mission requests directly to Guard officials, rather than processing them through the county EOC.

Finally, some police officers phoned individual friends in departments and agencies elsewhere in the state, asking

them for help. “Our captains and staff didn’t know how to do mutual aid,” exclaims Bayan Lewis. “We’d never

done if before. So people were calling friends in Bakersfield, saying, ‘Hey, get your people down here!’”

The lack of a coordinated response made it significantly harder for EOC personnel to know who was

available for missions, what areas of the city and county were covered, and what new sources of aid could still be

tapped. One hundred police officers reported from San Diego the second day of the riots after receiving a call from

someone in the city, for example, but because the request hadn’t been routed through the EOC, the center

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HKS Case Program 11 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

couldn’t track down the source of the appeal or figure out where to place the officers, and they eventually

returned home. “I remember getting a phone call from the law branch at the state OES during the riots, and they

said, ‘Hey, we’ve got 150 officers from Northern California on a C-130 from Travis Air Force Base, wheels up,

headed your way. Where do you want them?’” recalls Lieutenant Beene of the county EOC. “Everybody was just

sending resources in here to help, but we were thinking, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t even straighten out the

resources that we have, and you keep sending more in there.’”

The eagerly awaited deployment of the National Guard also got off to a patchy start. Troops typically were

sent to the specific law enforcement agency that had asked for them, and a Guard unit commander, if present,

would confer with the senior police official or sheriff’s deputy from that jurisdiction to decide what the soldiers

should do. According to General Delk, he and his officers had decided the troops would have the most impact if

deployed in small groups, rather than platoon-size units—a risky, but conscious strategy. “What we first did was

had a show of force,” Delk explains, “and then we left soldiers behind two by two.”20

The troops were not only expected to help law enforcement officials hold on to the gains they had made,

they were meant to be a visible symbol of the return of law and order to the streets of Los Angeles. Out of the first

battalion deployed, one company was sent to east Los Angeles, a second company was spread out among the

pillaged malls and streets in Compton and areas of South Central, a third was concentrated on the downtown

government complex, including the jail, and a final group went to a county prison outside of the city where

inmates were rioting.21

Due to the piecemeal fashion in which soldiers were deployed, though, the 40th Infantry Division didn’t

always know where all its troops were, and had no easy way to contact them. In addition, although the mayor and

governor had faulted the Guard for a slow mobilization, many of those soldiers finally equipped sat idle because

the Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD didn’t know where to put them. ‘We never had less than a battalion

standing around,” recalls Delk. “Never less, normally more.”22

Also troubling, some law enforcement officials say, was the fact that a few newscasters not only had

reported that the Guard initially lacked ammunition, they had mistakenly announced that soldiers on the street

were still unarmed. “We never sent a soldier out without ammunition,” insists Delk, “and normally it was 30

rounds.”23 As a result of the misinformation, Delk says, looters and gang members were often brazen and

19 William H. Webster and Hubert Williams, The City in Crisis (2 Volumes): A Report by the Special Advisor to the Board of

Police Commissioners on the Civil Disorder in Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA: October 21, 1992), Volume 1, p. 129.
20 While stationed in pairs, troops typically were in sight of other soldiers, and had access to a radio, a cell phone, or a pay

phone. James Delk interview with writer, April 5, 2000. Subsequent comments by Delk are from the same interview.
21 William W. Mendel, “Combat in Cities: The LA Riots and Operation Rio,” Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth,

Kansas, July 1996.
22 A Guard battalion can range from about 350 troops to more than 1,000.
23 Lieutenant Sid Heal of the Sheriff’s Department, however, says a Guard Military Police Company deployed directly from

Northern California was sent to him to hold a key intersection but arrived with no ammunition. He ended up giving the
Guard ammunition hastily procured from a sheriff’s armory.

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HKS Case Program 12 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

aggressive, taunting the soldiers with their presumed inability to fire back. “Why in the world would we tell the

other side, he can’t shoot you?” asks former Fire Chief Donald Manning. “If we’re going to have them out there,

arm them and give them the right instructions, and don’t tell the public they’re out there and can’t do anything.

That’s stupid.”

The National Guard, from Thatcher to the troops waiting to deploy, had also become frustrated by and

defensive about television and newspaper coverage of the initial mobilization. Journalists not only criticized the

Guard for not responding fast enough, but also for having provided misleading and conflicting information about

when they would deploy and about why they had been delayed. Efforts to explain these misunderstandings, Delk

says, stole valuable time away from the task of stopping the riots.

Contemplating a Federal Role

On the first afternoon of the Guard deployment, the number of troops on patrol was still so small that

their effectiveness was largely untested. At 4:30 on April 30, Warren Christopher, who had headed up the earlier

assessment of the LAPD, and who viewed the slow Guard deployment with real concern, asked Mayor Bradley’s

staff whether the mayor was considering requesting federal troops.

In fact, both Bradley and Wilson were alarmed by the fact that the Guard had been unable to move in

swiftly to quash the disturbance, and feared that if the riots were not stopped by the weekend, they would likely

spread and intensify. As it was, the impact had already been profound. By mid-day, authorities had reported at

least 20 deaths in the disturbance and more than 500 people injured, and hundreds of fires still burned. The

Southern California Rapid Transit District had cancelled all bus service, schools in Los Angeles and Compton had

closed, and many businesses had sent workers home Thursday for an extended weekend, even in areas away from

the rioting. Both because of heavy smoke, and the possibility of gunfire striking an aircraft, Los Angeles

International Airport had begun redirecting arriving and departing flights over the Pacific Ocean, reducing activity

to less than a quarter the normal rate, and creating gridlock up and down the West Coast.

In addition, with the riots still spreading, the feeling had grown throughout Los Angeles that no area was

safe, and that even wealthy communities previously untouched by urban unrest faced the possibility of violence

and destruction. According to former Governor Wilson, his office was being inundated by calls from politicians and

business people. “There was a concern that there could be a highly lawless element who, encouraged by the initial

default, would just take full advantage of it,” says Wilson, “and there were a number of people within the

community who were panicking.”

Bradley took Warren Christopher’s suggestion seriously. That evening, he authorized a request for federal

troops, asking Christopher to contact federal authorities and to initiate the process of procuring federal forces.

Much to Bradley’s horror, as of 8 p.m., there were still only 1,000 Guard troops deployed. At another meeting of

top officials a few hours later, Bradley insisted that he needed more Guard forces, and that he would call in federal

troops the following morning if there still weren’t enough soldiers on the streets. Just before midnight, meanwhile,

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HKS Case Program 13 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Gates and Block requested another 2,000 Guard troops. Clearly, however, there was still a critical disconnect

between the need on the streets and the ability of the Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD to put troops to work. At

Los Alamitos, Guard officials questioned the need to call up more troops, since more than 4,000 were already

present or reporting soon, and since many units still had no missions and were waiting in armories with nothing to

do.

By midnight, the riots’ toll had mounted. According to official estimates, there had been 31 riot-related

deaths in all, and more than 1,000 injuries. The three hospitals closest to the rioting—Martin Luther King, Jr.,

General Hospital, Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, and the St. Francis Medical Center—had been inundated

with patients, and the county EOC had directed ambulances to go to less crowded hospitals nearby.24 Meanwhile,

the record number of emergency 9-1-1 calls on Thursday—62,749, up from 35,558 the previous day—had

overwhelmed the ability of dispatchers to handle them. 25 Although fire personnel were feeling more secure with

their CHP escorts, Thursday evening had been significantly worse than the first night of the riots. At 11 p.m., a total

of 950 firefighters and paramedics were on the streets, including firefighters from 48 different mutual aid agencies,

and during the 24-hour period of April 30, firefighters received reports of almost 3,250 structure fires, compared to

32 calls on an average day.26

Shortly after 1 a.m., Governor Wilson put in a formal request to President George Bush for federal troops,

and by 3:30 a.m., 3,500 troops were on their way to Los Angeles for possible deployment.27 In addition, after

discussing the issue with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, Wilson had decided that if

federal troops deployed, he would federalize the National Guard, which would remove the Guard from state

control and put them instead under a federal chain of command. “If there were going to be federal troops

involved,” Wilson says, “it simply made sense from the standpoint of command and control that there be a single

command.” But Richard Andrews, formerly of OES, says it was more than that. “Wilson was so fed up with the

information that he was getting, and the information that he wasn’t getting, and the mixed signals, that he had

basically lost confidence in the command structure of the Guard.”

Putting the Guard to Work

Despite the devastation of the previous night, by Friday morning, May 1, many emergency personnel in

Los Angeles began to feel a sense of hope. Due in part to the curfew and the gradually increasing presence of

National Guard troops and law enforcement officers on the street, both looting and new incidents of arson had

fallen off sharply after midnight. According to Battalion Commander Terrance Manning, after a thirty-six hour

24 As an emergency room filled up, it notified the county, which then alerted paramedics to divert to the next closest

hospital. None of the hospitals, however, turned away the many patients who came on their own.
25 Webster and Williams, Volume 1, p. 110. Normal volume was 6,500 calls for the LAPD, and 900 for the fire department.
26 While still sobering, the number of structures actually damaged or destroyed by fire during the riots was less than 1,150.

Timothy V. Manning, Terrance J. Manning, and Christopher S. Kawai, Los Angeles City Fire Department Historical
Overview: Los Angeles Civil Disturbance, April 29, 1992 (Los Angeles, CA: October 1992), pp. 8, 42, and 144.

27 A decision on whether to actually use the troops would not be made until later that day.

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HKS Case Program 14 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

period that had demanded the largest commitment of resources in the history of the fire department, firefighters

had begun to consider the arson situation largely under control.28 “The first night was a wild ride,” says Manning.

“And the next 24 hours was a lot of fire activity, a lot of looting, but we felt that we were now prepared to respond

to it in an appropriate fashion.”

Many within the LAPD also felt the worst was over. “We had half the department out that second night,

and we had what I felt was good blanket coverage,” recalls Bayan Lewis. “We were making arrests, we were not

allowing ourselves to be driven by the news media—which happened the first night—and people realized very

quickly that if they were out on the street, they went to jail. By two in the morning, the streets were empty.”29

Lieutenant Dennis Beene of the Sheriff’s Department offers a slightly different perspective. The looters and

arsonists began to withdraw, he says, because “a lot of them were just tired.”

The Guard roll-out hadn’t made great strides overnight. As of 6:00 a.m., there were still only 1,555 Guard

soldiers on the street, with another 2,743 waiting for missions, and more arriving in the armories. But by early

afternoon, the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department finally began to deploy the Guard in large numbers. The LAPD, in

particular, requested thousands of additional troops, staging many as an instantly available reserve force at the

Sports Arena/Coliseum complex—toward the north edge of South Central by the University of Southern California.

By 2:47 p.m., there were more than 3,000 Guard troops performing missions, with 2,300 available and waiting.

Three hours later, another 1,385 were on their way to specific missions.30

The sight of the uniformed soldiers, who finally began to appear in force the third day of the riots, had a

significant impact, LAPD officers say. Gang members and looters generally took the presence of troops more

seriously than that of regular law enforcement officers, despite questions over whether all soldiers had

ammunition. “We needed that psychological, mental impact that the army is in the streets, and government is back

in control,” Bayan Lewis says. “The Guard clearly gave us that.”

In addition, Lewis and other officers say, Guard soldiers distinguished themselves by being highly

responsive to the needs of the police and the Sheriff’s Department, taking on almost all tasks asked of them.

Typical Guard missions included managing traffic control points, patrolling shopping centers to prevent looting,

riding along in police cars to provide extra law enforcement power, guarding emergency work crews, and

protecting sensitive sites, such as utility buildings or fire departments. “I was very proud of them,” says former

governor Wilson. “I thought they did an excellent job…notwithstanding my unhappiness with the command.”

28 During that initial 36 hours, the dispatch center had created 6,529 emergency incidents, including fires and related

violence, and 862 structures had been burned within the city.
29 According to Lewis, there were some 10,000 riot-related arrests in the first 36 hours of the disturbance.
30 A full brigade of Guard troops from Northern California—ordered to head south around midnight the previous night—was

also on its way, despite assertions by Major General Daniel Hernandez, commander of the 40th Infantry Division, that by
the time they arrived, they would not be needed.

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HKS Case Program 15 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Even as the situation on the streets began to improve, however, the planned mobilization of federal

troops moved forward. “We are going to see to it that the people of this city are protected,” Governor Wilson

declared at a 1:00 p.m. press conference. “The public safety is the paramount concern, the immediate concern,

and however long it takes, however much it takes, we are going to see to it that it is achieved.” At 6:00 p.m.,

President Bush announced on television that the decision had been made to deploy federal troops into the streets

of Los Angeles, and that the Guard would be federalized. In addition, the government had begun to send in more

than 1,700 federal agents with special riot training from such agencies as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the

United States Border Patrol, and the Federal Marshals office. “The presence of the CHP and the Guard had had a

very desirable effect of checking the concern that there was going to be total pandemonium and that there was no

one in the streets to prevent it,” recounts Wilson. “The further word that federal troops were coming indicated

that however much people had been free to raise hell and set things afire on the first night, that time was over.”

Reminiscent of the earlier delays in the LAPD and National Guard responses, however, federal troops did

not appear on the streets of Los Angeles as quickly as either Mayor Bradley or Governor Wilson had expected.

“There was a reluctance on the part of the military to come in,” Wilson says. “They don’t like the idea of being

called in to be a substitute for the police department in a domestic setting. At least that is clearly the impression

that I got at the time.”

The Pentagon had appointed Major General Marvin Covault, commander of the US Army’s 7th Infantry

Division at Fort Ord, California, to be Joint Task Force Commander of the 2,023 Army and 1,508 US Marine troops

assembling at staging areas south of Los Angeles during the day.31 In a conversation with Wilson late afternoon

Friday, General Covault informed the governor that federal forces wouldn’t be ready to deploy until the following

day after all the soldiers had arrived and had had a chance to train. There was no need for federal troops to rush in

without adequate preparation, Covault told Wilson, particularly since the crisis was no longer as acute, and there

were still Guard troops who had not been given specific missions. 32

At 10 p.m., General Covault met with Gates and Block to discuss how federal troops would be deployed.

The police chief and the sheriff were already dubious about the federal deployment, in part because they felt that

the worst of the riots were over, and that National Guard troops were all they needed to restore order. The

discussion with Covault, however, only worsened their fears. Gates and Block had hoped to use federal troops

much as they had used the Guard, not only posting them in volatile areas, but also assigning them to specific law

enforcement missions. Covault, however, had apparently concluded that the Guard had already restored law and

order, and that federal troops—and the federalized National Guard—should only be used to maintain control,

rather than to perform the sort of routine law enforcement duties that Guard troops had previously undertaken.

31 Army troops were members of the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, mobile troops designed to respond quickly to urban

warfare situations, while the Marines were a battalion from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp
Pendleton, California.

32 Delk, p. 116. Although the LAPD had requested all available Guard troops by the time it got dark, many were simply
posted at central locations such as the Hollywood Bowl and Dodger Stadium, and some units sent to the Coliseum waited
more than 24 hours before receiving a mission.

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HKS Case Program 16 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

According to some observers, Covault’s decision to limit the role of the troops was based on a mistaken

application of the federal Posse Comitatus Act, legislation dating from the end of Reconstruction that was designed

to keep military forces out of domestic police activities, and that prohibited soldiers from performing law

enforcement duties. The act did not apply however, when a president called in troops to respond to a civil

disturbance under federal statute, such as had occurred in Los Angeles. Others, though, insisted that Covault was

fully aware he was not restricted by Posse Comitatus, but had decided that keeping the mission of troops narrow

was both in line with Bush’s executive order and was the appropriate use of federal forces. “It was not the

military’s mission to solve Los Angeles’s crime problem, nor were we trained to do so,” Covault later said in

response to criticisms of the federal troop role.33 Adds Brigadier General Edward Buckley, then a colonel and

commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division, “We weren’t going to try to do police work. We were

there to provide stability, to provide a force presence to essentially take back control of the crisis.”34 In any event,

Gates and Block viewed the upcoming change in the Guard’s role with disappointment and alarm.

An Uneasy Collaboration

Emergency personnel pointed to Friday night as the turning point in the riots, but the third day and night

of the disturbance were still violent and destructive. By Saturday morning, May 2, there had been 12 more deaths,

and 1,172 more structural fires. Nevertheless, the tide had begun to turn. Things were finally running smoothly at

the city’s Emergency Operations Center, according to Shirley Mattingly, coordinator of the city’s Emergency

Operations Organization, and members of both the Emergency Operations Board and the Emergency Management

Committee were meeting to coordinate agency responses. Emergency 9-1-1 calls on Friday had dropped to below

the level of the first day of the riots, and by 11 a.m. Saturday, there were more than 6,000 Guard troops engaged,

more than 1,000 waiting for deployment, and another 1,856 getting ready to deploy. With troops and Humvees on

the streets and helicopters overhead, most law enforcement officials no longer felt South Central was out of

control. While some buildings were still smoldering, volunteers in parts of the community had begun to rally to

clean up the residue of rioting and looting. A few businesses in riot-torn areas even began to re-open.

Against this backdrop, the first federal troops—the Marine battalion—finally deployed Saturday afternoon

to the Compton and Long Beach areas, and soon after, the contingent of 2,500 Army troops was stationed around

Watts and nearby Huntington Park. According to General Edward Buckley, the Guard had been effective, but the

federal soldiers still had work to do. “As an initial response force, they did a wonderful job, and they got there at

the most critical time of the riot,” Buckley says. “But the crisis wasn’t over. The problem was we were still having

incidents occur, and I think Governor Wilson wanted to end this as quickly as possible.”

But according to many observers, particularly within the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department, the more

structured command and control inherent in a federal military response—in particular, the rules governing mission

tasking and troop strength— eliminated most of the flexibility and responsiveness that had characterized the initial

33 Ibid., p. 320.
34 Edward Buckley interview with writer, April 5, 2000. Subsequent comments by Buckley are from the same interview.

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HKS Case Program 17 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Guard response, and immediately reduced the usefulness of military troops to local law enforcement. As Sheriff’s

Lieutenant Sid Heal complains, “Just when we were getting to where we thought the Guard was really being

effective, they federalized them.”35

When the Guard was under state control, a Guard officer stationed at the county EOC had approved

virtually all the requests that local law enforcement officials submitted, and Guard troops had been able to move

fluidly from one task to another. But the federal mission approval process was more convoluted. First, Joint Task

Force representatives based at the county EOC had to prioritize incoming requests from the LAPD and the rest of

the county. Once done, they submitted the requests to the task force headquarters at Los Alamitos for review by

General Covault, the operations officer, and the Senior Civilian Representative of the Attorney General,

representing the US Department of Justice.36

The new review process was not only far more time consuming, often taking six to eight hours, most

requests were refused. With the riots largely under control, many remaining tasks—such as police officer ride

alongs, manning traffic control points, or providing area patrols—could easily be classified as law enforcement

related, and were therefore judged inappropriate for federal troops and the federalized Guard. Indeed, under the

new review process, the Guard only accepted about 20 percent of law enforcement requests. In addition, the Joint

Task Force often insisted on detailed mission descriptions. If troops were to move to a new location nearby, they

first needed approval for a mission change. “The first night the Guard deployed, I would turn to the battalion

commander and say, ‘I need you to take troops to this location, we need to seal this, we need a barricade on this

road, we need so and so,’ and they did it,” recalls Bayan Lewis, who had been named one of four district

commanders overseeing riot control operations in the south central part of the city. “By the time it was

federalized, I couldn’t do that any longer because the missions were lost.”

In addition, rather than sending out small squads of soldiers on demand, an approach that Guard Field

Commander Delk had acknowledged as risky but effective, the Joint Task Force directed troops to deploy in

platoon strength—or in groups of about 40 soldiers—under the command of a commissioned officer. According to

General Buckley, those 40 soldiers might disperse over an area of a couple of blocks, but would still be close

enough to respond to each other if a larger force was needed. While General Covault didn’t insist that all Guard

missions immediately comply with that order, new missions were expected to follow the new protocol. While

many local law enforcement officers saw the order as unnecessarily restrictive, most military personnel believed it

was essential for the safety of soldiers and citizens alike that the troops report as a unit, as their training had

prepared them to do.

One additional change, while less significant from the standpoint of the police, was particularly frustrating

for Guard officers and troops, according to Delk. Instead of allowing troops latitude in deciding whether to have

ammunition in their guns, and at what degree of readiness to keep their weapons, the Joint Task Force issued a

35 Sid Heal interview with writer, March 29, 2000.
36 When the military was involved in a domestic civil disturbance, the lead agency was typically the Justice Department.

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HKS Case Program 18 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

new arming order prohibiting troops from having ammunition in their weapons without special approval from

headquarters.37 Although Joint Task Force officials told Delk that the order was intended as a guideline and need

not be applied to all situations, that distinction was never made official. As a result, some units felt compelled to

follow the order, other units ignored it, and others began sending out only those soldiers who volunteered for

duty, since officers believed the order subjected soldiers to unnecessary and unacceptable risk. “What we had was

selective indiscipline,” Delk recalls, “and that’s always bothersome to senior officers.”

Finally, local law enforcement officials were having trouble accommodating the large and varied

contingent of federal officers, numbering more than 1,700, that had been sent in as part of the federal response,

many without vehicles. Police officers and sheriff’s deputies who had been riding four to a car found themselves

having to eject their own experienced personnel in order to include some of these federal officers. “I had Border

Patrol and Bureau of Prisons with me Saturday night, and there was nothing happening—it was dead,” recalls

Bayan Lewis. “They had flown in with a laundry bag, that was all. It was wasted resources, but it was a federal

effort to try to do something.” He adds: “The place was absolutely dead, nothing happening, and all of a sudden

we had all of these resources.”

While the local, state, and federal collaboration was not always smooth, however, the assembled law

enforcement presence was impressive. By Sunday, a force of 13,000 was deployed in and around Los Angeles,

including some 7,000 Guard troops, the 3,500 federal troops, and an amalgam of officers from local, state, and

federal agencies. “It’s better to be too strong and to reduce the strength than to create a vacuum in which violence

can take place and escalate,” says Wilson. That night, there were only a few new fatalities, and the accumulated

efforts of some 2,000 firefighters drawn in through the fire department’s mutual aid system had finally

extinguished most of the fires that had been burning in Los Angeles since the night of April 29.

The Effort to Disengage

The Los Angeles riots were considered officially over when Mayor Bradley lifted the curfew Monday

evening, May 4, five days after the violence had begun. The following day, most federal agents were released, but

civilian officials argued against letting go of the federal and National Guard troops. Bradley, in particular, wanted to

make sure that Los Angeles had returned to normal before the soldiers departed, and had been visiting churches,

civic groups, and other organizations, both to impart a sense of calm and to try to gauge the mood in South Central

and other parts of the city. “This was a very traumatic event for the city, for Bradley, for everybody,” says former

OES Director Richard Andrews. “They didn’t want to say it’s all over and send these guys home, and bam, the

whole thing erupts again.”

Even Daryl Gates was arguing to keep the military presence in place, particularly at night, in order to

maintain control and to provide additional backup so that officers could rest. In addition, there were widespread

rumors that gangs would target police officers once the soldiers had departed. “Wilson said to be careful about any

37 The order again raised speculation about Guard troops being sent out without ammunition.

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HKS Case Program 19 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

public statements regarding deployment,” Andrews recounts. “We were to say we were going to continue keeping

the troops there, we had no intention of withdrawing, and there should be no talk about downsizing”

General Covault, however, believed federal and Guard troops should leave as soon as possible. Although

the rioting had stopped, gang and criminal activity in South Central and other areas of Los Angeles was still

rampant, and National Guard and federal troops continued to find themselves in explosive situations. On Sunday

night, for example, Guard troops had shot and killed a man, later identified as Victor Rivas, a former Salvadoran

policeman, after he made two attempts to run down Guard soldiers with his car.38 A second incident that same

night had also alarmed officials. Police and Marines were responding to a disturbance in Compton, which turned

out to be a domestic dispute, when two shotgun rounds were fired through the door. One of the police o fficers

shouted, “Cover me,” meaning that the Marines should have their weapons ready to respond if necessary. But the

Marines, understanding “cover me” to mean providing cover by using firepower, shot off what was later estimated

to have been more than 200 rounds. Remarkably, neither the man who fired the original shots from inside, nor the

woman and children who turned out to be in the apartment, were hit by the bullets.39

Perhaps in response to the Rivas shooting, as well as in recognition of the problems that could result from

using soldiers in non-riot incidents, the Joint Task Force had issued a new Operations Order at 7:00 Monday

morning, declaring that troops would no longer patrol the streets during the day, and that the role of military

forces was to be “one of less visible backup and reinforcement capabilities.” By Tuesday, Covault believed it was

time for federal forces to go. “At this point,” Covault wrote in a report to Fort Ord, “the military is providing 10,000

targets for the type of activity going on in the streets (i.e. pure lawlessness versus civil disturbance). The potential

downside to continue in the law enforcement mode is enormous (not trained and ready to do so.)”40 Over the next

few days, Covault began canceling military missions—often without consulting with local law enforcement

agencies—disengaging federal troops, and letting the Guard take their place. “We were under a lot of pressure

from Covault,” Andrews recalls. “All that week he wanted to pull out.”

On Saturday, May 9, federal troops finally began to depart, and the National Guard reverted to state

status.41 With defederalization, the Guard once again accepted a broader range of assignments, including

controlling traffic and accompanying police officers and deputies on patrols. Just five days later, though, the

National Guard also began to disengage, although Delk says the transition wasn’t easy. “Nobody wanted to let us

go,” he says. “When a mother stands there with tears coming down her face, saying, ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever felt

safe going to the market,’ and others were coming out with pies to our soldiers, saying, ‘Please stay, please stay,’

boy, that grabs at the heart strings.” On Wednesday, May 27, the last soldiers headed home.

38 Rivas was to be the single Guard-inflicted fatality of the riots.
39 Delk, p. 221.
40 Delk, p. 235.
41 In fact, Covault and his troops began to leave before an official announcement had been made. Richard Andrews, alerted

to the soldiers’s imminent departure, quickly scheduled a press conference at which Govern or Wilson cou ld th an k th e

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HKS Case Program 20 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

The Aftermath

The riots had left Los Angeles in disarray. An area of 105 square miles within the city had been affected,

and South Central and other areas of the city and county had been devastated, with some 1,148 structures

damaged or destroyed. Even before federal troops left the area, Mayor Bradley had created a non-profit task force,

dubbed Rebuild L.A., whose mission it would be to reconstruct the damaged inner city of Los Angeles.

As the city launched into the reconstruction effort, though, it soon became clear that the riots had altered

not just the physical landscape of the city, but the political landscape, as well. On May 11, the Los Angeles Board of

Police Commissioners initiated an investigation of the flawed LAPD response, and Governor Wilson ordered an

informal report assessing the performance of the state National Guard. The following month, Los Angeles voters

passed Amendment F, which Police Chief Gates had strongly opposed.42 Under the amendment, future police

chiefs could serve only two five-year terms, as earlier recommended by the Christopher Commission, and officers

who broke rules, such as those prohibiting excessive force, could more easily be disciplined. On June 26, Gates

finally stepped down, making way for his successor, former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams.

General Thrasher, adjutant general of the National Guard, left in what Wilson describes as a “mutual decision.” In

September, meanwhile, Mayor Bradley announced he would not seek a sixth term in 1993, a decision that some

observers linked to the fallout from the riots.

In the aftermath of the disturbance, the city’s Emergency Operations Organization and the region’s

emergency response organizations—from the LAPD, to the Sheriff’s Department, to the National Guard—also

began to retool their civil disturbance training and preparedness, and vowed not to be caught unawares again. But

despite such good intentions, keeping law enforcement and other emergency personnel properly prepared for an

event as unexpected, unpredictable, and unlikely as a riot would prove a tremendous challenge, warns Bayan

Lewis, especially since the tendency of emergency planners was to focus on the last emergency they had

experienced. When he thinks about riot preparedness, Lewis says, he imagines himself about 20 years in the

future, sitting on the porch of a Nevada rest home. “Somebody will open the Los Angeles Times for me,” he says,

“and it will say, ‘Major Riot 27 Years Later: LAPD Unprepared.’”

federal forces for their role and bid them farewell. “We didn’t want the impression that these guys were totally
independent agents,” Andrews recalls.

42 Defeatin g th e am en d m en t w as th e focu s of th e fu n d raiser th at Gates h ad atten d ed as th e riots w ere first
breakin g ou t.

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HKS Case Program 21 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Exhibit A
Key Players in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

Los Angeles Police Department
Daryl Gates—Chief of the LAPD
Robert Vernon—Assistant Chief and director of the Office of Operations
Bayan Lewis—Commander of the LAPD’s Uniformed Services Group
Michael Hillmann—Lieutenant and interim commander of the Metropolitan Division

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Sherman Block—Sheriff
Dennis Beene—Lieutenant and team leader at the county Emergency Operations Center
Sid Heal—Lieutenant

Los Angeles City Fire Department
Donald Manning—Chief
Terrance Manning—Battalion commander
Donald Anthony—Deputy Chief and commander of the Bureau of Fire Suppression and Rescue

City of Los Angeles
Tom Bradley—Mayor
Warren Christopher—Los Angeles attorney and chairman of the so-called Christopher Commission, the
Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department

California Office of Emergency Services
Richard Andrews—Director

State of California
Pete Wilson—Governor

California National Guard
Robert Thrasher—Major General and Adjutant General of the California National Guard
James Delk—Brigadier General and the National Guard’s military field commander for the riots

California Highway Patrol
Maurice Hannigan—Commissioner
Edward Gomez—Chief and commander of the CHP’s Southern Division

United States Army
Marvin Covault—Major General, commander of the 7th Infantry Division, and Joint Task Force commander
Edward Buckley—Colonel and commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division

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HKS Case Program 22 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Exhibit B
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots:

Chronology of Events

1992
Wednesday, April 29
9:00 p.m.
Governor Pete Wilson authorizes the deployment of the California National Guard to assist in controlling the Los
Angeles riots.

9:15 p.m.
Major General Robert Thrasher, Adjutant General of the California National Guard, orders the mobilization of 2,000
National Guard troops.

10:13 p.m.
During a conference call of top officials, including Mayor Tom Bradley and Governor Wilson, Los Angeles Police
Department (LAPD) Chief Daryl Gates and Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block both express doubt over the
need for National Guard troops, but welcome the assistance of the California Highway Patrol. Gates turns down
Block’s offer of 500 sheriff’s deputies.

Thursday, April 30
12:05 a.m.
Governor Wilson declares a state of emergency for Los Angeles County.

12:15 a.m.
Mayor Bradley declares a dusk-to-dawn curfew for South Central Los Angeles.

4:00 a.m.
Most of the 2,000 National Guard troops called up by the governor have reported to Los Angeles armories, where
they await supplies and ammunition.

6:00 a.m.
Police Chief Gates arrives at the city’s Emergency Operations Center after a night spent viewing the riot areas.

10:00 a.m.
Mayor Bradley informs the City Council that National Guard troops will be on the streets within two hours.

10:07 a.m.
A state Office of Emergency Services liaison officer tells the National Guard Emergency Operations Center in
Sacramento that Guard troops probably won’t need to deploy until 4:00 p.m.

General Thrasher of the National Guard tells Sheriff Block that the 2,000 Guard troops in the armories are ready to
deploy.

11:00 a.m.
Governor Wilson approves the mobilization of 2,000 additional Guard soldiers.

Fire Department Chief Donald Manning convenes a meeting at which the California Highway Patrol offers to
provide firefighter escorts.

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HKS Case Program 23 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

11:30 a.m.
In a conference call, Governor Wilson urges Chief Gates and Sheriff Block to deploy Guard troops.

12:30 p.m.
Mayor Bradley phones Governor Wilson to complain about the delayed deployment of National Guard soldiers.

1:20 p.m.
General Thrasher learns from the Sheriff’s Department that the National Guard troops are still waiting for supplies
in order to deploy.

1:30 p.m.
Brigadier General James Delk, the National Guard’s military field commander, informs the Sheriff’s Department
that two Guard platoons with borrowed ammunition are ready to deploy.

1:50 p.m.
A helicopter carrying ammunition and supplies for National Guard troops lands at Los Alamitos, about six hours
later than many officials had expected.

2:35 p.m.
The two waiting Guard platoons finally deploy with Sheriff’s Department escorts.

Law enforcement officials agree that the National Guard will be responsible for most Sheriff’s Department and
LAPD missions, other than escort duty and perimeter control, which are being handled primarily by the California
Highway Patrol. Missions are to be coordinated out of the Sheriff’s Emergency Operations Center.

4:00 p.m.
Mayor Bradley extends the dusk-to-dawn curfew to all of Los Angeles.

4:30 p.m.
Warren Christopher suggests to the mayor’s office the possibility of calling in federal troops.

6:30 p.m.
The California Highway Patrol provides some 300 firefighter escorts, allowing the Fire Department to operate more
effectively in riot areas.

7:30 p.m.
Mayor Bradley asks Warren Christopher to initiate a request for federal troops.

11:56 p.m.
The LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department ask for an additional 2,000 National Guard troops, although hundreds of
soldiers were still waiting in armories for missions.

Friday, May 1
1 a.m.
Governor Wilson submits a formal request to President George Bush for federal troops.

7:30 a.m.
After 36 hours, the Los Angeles Fire Department declares the worst of the fires in the riot areas under control.

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HKS Case Program 24 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

2:47 p.m.
More than 3,000 National Guard troops are on the streets performing missions.

6:00 p.m.
President Bush announces the planned deployment of federal troops and the federalization of the National Guard.

10:00 p.m.
Joint Task Force Commander Major General Marvin Covault tells Chief Gates and Sheriff Block that the mission of
federal troops and the National Guard will be to help maintain control, not to perform law enforcement duties.

Saturday, May 2
11:00 a.m.
More than 6,000 National Guard troops are on the streets.

Afternoon
Federal troops deploy to Compton, Long Beach, Watts, and Huntington Park.

Sunday, May 3
Morning
A combined force of more than 13,000 National Guard troops, federal soldiers, and federal officers are deployed in
and around Los Angeles.

Monday, May 4
7:00 a.m.
General Covault ends day patrols on the part of state and federal troops, relegating them to a “less visible” backup
role.

5:15 p.m.
Mayor Bradley lifts the dusk-to-dawn curfew, signaling the official end of the riots.

Tuesday, May 5 to Friday, May 8
General Covault continues the disengagement of state and federal troops.

Saturday, May 9
Federal troops depart and the federalization of the National Guard ends.

Wednesday, May 13
The first National Guard troops begin to withdraw.

Wednesday, May 27
The last National Guard soldiers depart Los Angeles.

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HKS Case Program 25 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Exhibit C43

Rules of Engagement

43 Source: James D. Delk, Fires & Furies: The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications, 1995), pp. 341-2.

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HKS Case Program 26 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Exhibit C

Rules of Engagement (cont.)

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