Sunday Call O' the Day

A bit late on posting this one but it's solid:

So I'm listening to the patter on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when the LAPD upgrades a "415 man" call to a "narcotics activity" in West LA division. Some dude at the Century Plaza Hotel (a pretty upscale joint) in Century City was hanging out in the lobby apparently annoying customers.

He was described as a "male black, 30s, wearing a tan shirt and tan pants." He allegedly progressed from his "415 behavior" to the more specific activity of "freebasing drugs in the lobby"!!! Good times.

I didn't bother to switch over to the West LA frequency to listen to the outcome--and since it was only upgraded to Code 2, I imagine it took a patrol unit plenty of sweet, sweet time to make it over there.

But I say, if a man can't enjoy a little heated crack cocaine in the lobby of a luxury hotel, then yes, this country really is going to hell.

Odds, Ends

-- A few nights ago, LAPD caught the rare West LA division shooting. Call went out around 11 p.m. for a shots fired with a possible victim screaming for help in the far western and southern fringes of Brentwood. A bunch of units bought the call as two other "vicinity calls" went out in short order. Pretty soon, it was upgraded to an Ambulance Shooting with Engine and Rescue 37 (Westwood) attached. Since the LAPD has a bad habit of not trying to sort out vicinity calls until after units arrive, they had three separate primary units going Code 3 to a 2-block area and a bunch of other backup units bought in, as well. That included the basic car from way out in the Palisades, which was responding code from deep Sunset Boulevard.

So the first unit went Code 6 at San Vicente and Wilshire and unsurprisingly didn't find anything, while another primary car went out at an address on Barry Avenue right around the corner and found some dude shot in the stomach. The two white guys who were the alleged shooters had fled in a beat up Buick to parts unknown. Sounds like a shady drug deal gone bad.

--Meantime, across town in Beverly Hills, a "suspicious circs" call went down on an otherwise silent night. The dispatch was at a building on Wilshire that basically straddles the L.A./Beverly Hills city line on the southeastern end of the city at a joint called Sparkle Networks. Spark Networks--a quick Interwebs search reveals--is the parent company of such online dating sites as JDate, militaryconnections.com and interracialsingles.net. Well, it seems that some chick called the 877 customer service line around 11 p.m. and whoever answered the phone--likely in some town in central India or the Philippine archipelago--told the caller she was being stabbed and then hung up.

So Susie Good Samaritan must have been online or subsequently went online and found a biz address for Spark Networks that put the headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in BH. So the 911 call was that someone in the office was being stabbed. Fair enough (leaps of logic aside, at least the dispatcher didn't hang up on her).

Basically every on-duty patrol unit in BH bought into the call and one of the field sergeants rousted himself from HQ to respond on down to Wilshire and San Vicente. The dispatcher (one of BH's most competent) tried a number of times to call back the 877 number and kept getting hung up on after it picked up--though she said there were voices in the background. At this point, I'm giving it a 20% chance of being legit and a heavily 80% chance of being total bullshit. But BHPD went through the whole fire drill: Units posted on all sides of the big office building; four coppers and the Sgt. rallied up in the lobby; Engine 3 and Rescue 1 staging a block out; K9 unit in the rear parking lot obtained master keys from the cleaning crew; confirmed no one was supposed to be up there at 2300 hours; perimeter set.

So entry team then requests the shield from the trunk of one of the patrol units in case of a crazy stabber awaiting them on the 8th floor. So...once entry was made via janitor keys the office was swept and no sign of a victim and definitely no suspect. It was Code 4 and everyone went home. Another solid exercise for the BHPD.

--A small barelysortascratched traffic accident outside my office building last week brought a visit from an LAPD West Traffic unit and shortly thereafter, Rescue 102 rolled up for some bullshitneckbackneckandback pain. Nice to see South Van Nuys' finest playing way over in Carthay Circle.

Israeli Consulate Protests

So we're going on the fourth or fifth organized protest of Hamas vs. Israel since the conflict began late last month. Since then, the LAPD has really gotten their shit together after stumbling very badly the first time the Israeli and Palestinian supporters started yelling at each other from across the 6300 block of Wilshire Boulevard.

The first night of protests in late December saw the LAPD way behind the eight ball. They desperately requested backup from on-duty patrol units in Wilshire, West L.A. and Hollywood divisions as the crowd grew and they couldn't get their shit together fast enough to shut down Wilshire at rush hour. Reinforcements were sent in from the BHPD and the entire day watch shift of the BHPD was held over for a few hours while the LAPD tried to sort things out and keep protesters from getting run over on Wilshire. Also, they didn't want the two sides killing each other.

So, in the weeks since, they've really put their full effort into preventing a repeat of the organizational mishaps they suffered. What's amusing about the LAPD's subsequents shows of force is that they are disproportionate to the size of the protesters and to anything that actually occurred during the first--and biggest--protest. That is, they're clearly trying to save face and impress the other agencies more than they are actually worried about a full-blown riot erupting.

Anyways, that brings us to today's activities. On my jaunt back from Brentwood around 0900 I saw the LAPD airship circling low over Wilshire and San Vicente and figured something was up. I parked my car and mosey'd over to the general area, where the DOT had just shut down Wilshire going eastbound. The protesters numbered about 15. The LAPD numbered about 10. Within 20 minutes, the LAPD numbers swelled while the protesters remained about the same.

The crappy camera phone pic above shows the first arriving units from Wilshire, West L.A., Olympic and West Traffic divisions lining up along the street. A captain in a tricked-out black, Dodge Charger then showed up followed by a Sgt. from West Traffic. Then, the news trucks, helos and LAFD's Battalion 18's sedan rolled in. Apparently, some protesters had chained themselves to each other or the building or some other such nonsense.

As an aside, members of the State Department's diplomatic security force have basically been stationed in front of and in the consulate for the past week or so. I noticed a bunch of them taking a lunch break in front of the building yesterday.


By 1000 hours, when I returned to my place of work, which is down the street from the Israeli consulate, all of Wilshire had been shut from San Vicente to at least Crescent Heights and more than a dozen unmarked cars from Metro division were parked in the middle of the street, with officers suiting up in riot gear and removing bundles of flex-cuffs from their car trunks. The most interesting aspect of this is what's clearly a by-product of 2007's disastrous May-Day protests when the LAPD went wildin' through the crowd and beat up everyone in sight, including journalists. So now, on the back of their tactical vests, in huge WHITE BLOCK LETTERS are embroidered the officers names. At least I assume it's their names, what with "Martinez," "Rodriguez," "JACKSON," on full display. Funny, too, since when the LAPD is giving you a beatdown and you're covering your head, might be tough to spot the officer's last name ON THE BACK OF HIS UNIFORM as he's hitting you from the front. But the devil is always in the details.

At full strength, the LAPD response included units from Rampart and as Pacific divisions, as well. The LAFD had Light Force and Rescue 61 standing by, though I didn't see the full complement of mounted patrols that have been here on previous occasions.

By 1115 hours, the incident was Code 4, the Metro cops and the LAFD had departed and the airship cleared the scene.

New LAPD Stations Activated*

So I've been hearing the newly christened Olympic Area units being dispatched on the scanner in the past few days but haven't heard any calls go out for the new Topanga division way out in the west Valley (at the site of a former sex toy manufacturer!). But both divisions appear to be operational, Olympic being an important addition to the Mid-City area relieving some of the pressure in both the Wilshire and Rampart divisions. Olympic Area cars have the "20" prefix and the Topanga cars will have the "21" prefix.

There was a little murmur of debate a few weeks ago when the LAPD said they'd be shifting some officers from the ritzy (and relatively quiet) West LA Area to help staff up at Olympic.

*Check that. Just heard a Topanga unit get sent out on a HOTSHOT at 2252 hours. So all the new guys are now playing in the sandbox.