Reserve Officers Already Taking More Responsibility Within LAPD

Los Angeles Police Department reserve officers are at the center of Mayor-elect Richard Riordan’s plan to quickly boost the department’s presence on the streets. Even before he was elected, however, reserves were assuming greater responsibility within the LAPD.

The volunteers are joining more specialized and elite units, and for the first time are working alone or in pairs without the supervision of a full-time officer.

Some recent examples of the department’s expanded use of reserves:

* For two days in May, three-quarters of the night shift at the West Valley Area station was covered by reserves because the full-time officers were away on riot training.

* The department is in its second year of experimenting with two-officer teams of reserves, a concept that does away with the notion that a reserve should work only with a full-time officer.

* Reserves are becoming involved in community policing projects such as Neighborhood Watch, and are working as senior lead officers to organize citizen support of patrol units.

* The department is forming reserve task forces in some patrol areas, where volunteer officers are working to combat special crime problems such as gangs and prostitution.

“The LAPD is exposing the reserves to more and more challenges,” said David Cox, 24, a master’s program student at Cal State Northridge who became a reserve in 1990 and today works the West Valley. “We work in just about everything: the air support unit, CRASH, vice. . . . We assist the detectives and work in specialized units.

“I can’t see in the future that I’m going to ever stop doing this.”