Patterico's Pontifications

10/25/2009

Gosh, I Wonder Why He Wasn’t Home When We Came Looking for Him

Filed under: General — Jack Dunphy @ 2:54 am



[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

An anti-gang task force in South Los Angeles Thursday morning bagged 47 of the 74 wanted suspects. Over at Pajamas Media, I offer a theory on why more weren’t captured: They knew the cops were coming. You won’t believe why.

–Jack Dunphy

21 Responses to “Gosh, I Wonder Why He Wasn’t Home When We Came Looking for Him”

  1. Loose Lips Lose Crips

    kaf (e41bba)

  2. That’s not all that bad. In Chicago we have gangmembers’ girfriends and sisters working in the CPD — some as officers.

    nk (df76d4)

  3. Oh you have got to be kidding…

    Seriously? Did it get raised as a problem in the Hot Wash afterward or in the post-raid analysis?

    Does LAPD do post-raid analysis?

    Jack, all I know about the LAPD I learned from “Adam-12” and “Dragnet”, but is there anyone in the command staff above watch commander who has spent significant time as a patrolma…err…patrolperson? (And I realize watch commander is a job not a rank, but I would think that would be the highest rank to interact daily with the “troops” of the Police force.)

    MunDane68 (54a83b)

  4. My condolences. We all have to deal with the screw ups of our leaders, but you guys might actually die because of it.

    Please, somebody figure out, and publish the names of the people in charge!

    (FYI: I saw a Dragnet episode in which they charged a patrolman with shoving a citizen. Friday spent the whole episode looking into it. That’s a lifetime ago.)

    ukuleledave (32fa20)

  5. What does this tell us about the intelligence or auditory skills of those who did get caught? Maybe they need to widen their list of friends on Facebook…

    MKStach (a938de)

  6. thus proving, once again “red’s law for promotion” which applies to all large organizations: “Gold Sinks, Shit Floats”

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  7. Unbelievable, indeed. I hope the cops in other cities are paying attention to this debacle.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407)

  8. Loose Lips Lose Crips

    Kaf, that was perfect. Oh how I wish I had come up with that one myself.

    Jack Dunphy (38fbdf)

  9. It’s more than loose lips, or stupidity, or bureaucratic complacency, it’s the complicit undermining of a law enforcement operation by kowtowing high officials in the LAPD.

    The DA should look into who ordered the command post’s location, who objected to the selection of that location, and who specifically rejected or suppressed those objections. This is a crime, and it isn’t asking too much to expect the DA to do his job.

    PS: This isn’t on you, Patterico. It’s above your pay grade.

    ropelight (e08903)

  10. OK, so you deleted my comment. Now how about telling us if the jerks in charge are protected from discipline by their affirmative action status?

    Smarty (3935d0)

  11. Sorry, comment still there, but over at PJM. I would still be interested in knowing if the dumb Captains in question are of a ‘protected” class.

    Smarty (3935d0)

  12. Jack Dunphy,

    Is there a disciplinarian action that will be taken as superiors put their subordinates in potential danger as well as weakening the mission?

    Also, I assume the two deputy chiefs and captain of the operation came up through rank and file and therefore already knew the critical need for secrecy and surprise – how then do they explain themselves before what I would assume are an angry group of officers?

    Dana (e9ba20)

  13. Almost literally unbelievable, Jack.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  14. Glad you liked that, Jack. Feel free to use it around the office/beat. Does the LAPD have no doctrine on Operational Security (OPSEC)? Or did these idiots just chose to ignore it?

    kaf (e41bba)

  15. This is the same kind of leadership mentality that allowed the LA riots of 1992 to take place. I found my self and many fellow officers at risk trying to stop the rioting which started not because the verdict in the King case but through a lack of leadership at the command level.

    LAPD like most other departments send their command personnel to POST Command College, the FBI National Academy, leadership courses at Westpoint and Harvard. It does not seem to make any difference.

    When I retired as a detective sergeant after 30 years, I came to a conclusion as to why so many high ranking officers lack basic street sense.

    In order to get you ticket punched for promotion to the higher ranks, you cannot spend a lot of time working things like patrol, vice narcotics, traffic or other operational positions where the nuts and bolts police work is done.

    You have to play the game, to climb the ladder. Look at the bios of high ranking personnel in LAPD (or any large department.) You will see assignments like administration, communications, training, Planning and Research, Community Relations, DARE, Commander’s Aide and so on. Not a lot of real policing experience. Just stuff that looks great on the resume.

    At the same time you have to complete a BS/BA, MS/MA/MBA and in some cases a JD or PHD. That doe not leave a lot of spare time working working the overtime to frequently come with patrol and many specialized actual crime fighting assignments.

    As a result, a fair number of people are finding themselves in the upper echelons of leadership with a minimum of what I refer to operational police experience. They don’t have a clue about what it takes to be a real crime fighter.

    Thats my theory, anyway.

    Stan Switek (d9d8ce)

  16. Movie Time. You could not even get a studio in Hollywood to read a script that had this as a premiss. Yet it is real life, of the real streets, of the real Los Angeles.

    Sanmon (319c0c)

  17. A lot of so called leaders could learn from General Hal Moore. The lessons ffrom General Moore also translate to police work.

    Stan Switek (d9d8ce)

  18. Well, I wouldn’t worry about this. Once President Obama gets all of the Crips and Bloods free health care, they’ll come to their senses, reform their ways, and become model citizens. This episode just means that 27 of them won’t have a black mark stigmatizing their records, which will help them once they’ve reformed.

    The never naïve Dana (474dfc)

  19. Maybe the LAPD should just coordinate these raids on Twitter. It must be frustrating trying to perform real, meaningful police work under such political strife.

    sybilll (d2533d)

  20. Good lord.

    “When they were handing out brains, he thought they said “trains”, and he wasn’t going anywhere.”

    mojo (8096f2)

  21. That’s not all that bad. In Chicago we have gangmembers’ girfriends and sisters working in the CPD — some as officers.

    Comment by nk

    nk, that was a known national problem from the mid-late 70’s (think of the old CETA grants and who would be hired). Although at that time the gang members were more likely Hell’s Angles and Molochs and similar.

    Roy in Nipomo (4b8005)


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