LAPD Public Disorder Intelligence Division

Last updated

The Public Disorder and Intelligence Division (PDID) was a unit of the Los Angeles Police Department between 1970-1983 that mobilized undercover officers to monitor the activity of local activist organizations suspected of criminal activity. [1] Created by Chief Edward M. Davis and later overseen by Chief Daryl Gates, PDID was disbanded in 1983 amid public pressure. [2]

Contents

Notable events

Mayor Tom Bradley

In 1981, the Citizens Commission on Police Repression successfully sued the Los Angeles Police Department and consequently obtained documents detailing PDID’s spying campaign on then-mayor Tom Bradley. The intelligence reports, gathered by undercover officer Edward Camarillo, centered on whether or not Bradley intended on supporting the United Farm Workers’ upcoming boycott of Gallo wines. [3]

Seymour Myerson

In 1982, the LAPD paid $27,500 in damages to Seymour Myerson, an architect who had been a target of the PDID. The department confirmed that Myerson had been under its surveillance for three years, and Myerson was “tailed” by PDID on a 1974 trip to a protest march. [4] Detective Ruff admitted to phoning a false police report that Myerson had brandished a gun at his home in front of his children. Of that incident, Ruff said “That era was the Watergate era, and that was the practice.” [5]

Detective Jay Paul

In 1983, Detective Jay Paul was under investigation for allegedly leaking PDID intelligence to the right-wing group Western Goals Foundation. [6] An internal investigation confirmed that Paul kept PDID files at his home garage in Long Beach. Paul was suspended, but later reinstated with back pay, as his actions were sanctioned by his supervisors. [7]

Dissolution

In 1978, Citizens’ Commission on Police Repression leaked an official list of over 200 organizations that had been subject to PDID’s surveillance. [8] The same year, activists from the Coalition Against Police Abuse, the Citizens' Commission on Police Repression, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit (CAPA et al. vs. Gates, et al.). [9] This lawsuit was later consolidated to represent 23 groups and 108 individuals, charging that the LAPD illegally conducted spying operations based on political or ideological motivations. [10]

Throughout the trial, more PDID intelligence targets became public knowledge. Amidst several other calls from Los Angeles residents and city officials, on January 17, 1983, City Attorney Ira Reiner submitted a proposal to the city's Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee that the PDID be disbanded. The Police Commission and city council formally dissolved the PDID on January 18, 1983. [11]

CAPA et al. vs. Gates, et al. was settled for $1.8 million in early 1984. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Angeles Police Department</span> Primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.

A Los Angeles Police Department C.R.A.S.H. initiative that began in April 1987, Operation Hammer was a large scale attempt to crack down on gang violence in Los Angeles, California. A year later, the LA Times reported a double-digit drop in gang violence in parts of the city. After a group of people at a birthday party were shot down on their front lawn in a drive-by shooting, Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates responded with a roundup of gang members. At the height of this operation in April 1988, 1,453 people were arrested by one thousand police officers in South Central Los Angeles in a single weekend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums</span> Former gang crime unit of the Los Angeles Police Department

The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a specialized gang intelligence unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) tasked with combating gang-related crime between 1979 and 2000. The unit was established in the South Central district of Los Angeles, California, United States, to combat rising gang violence during the period. Each of the LAPD's 18 divisions had a CRASH unit assigned to it, whose primary goal was to suppress gang-related crimes in the city, which came about primarily from the increase in illegal drug trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daryl Gates</span> American former police chief in Los Angeles (1926–2010)

Daryl Francis Gates was an American police officer who served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only to that of William H. Parker. Gates is credited with the creation of SWAT teams alongside fellow Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer John Nelson, who others claim was the originator of SWAT in 1965. Gates also co-founded the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1992 Los Angeles riots</span> Riots following the beating of Rodney King

The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. The incident had been videotaped by George Holliday, who was a bystander to the incident, and was heavily broadcast in various news and media outlets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James E. Davis (Los Angeles police officer)</span> Los Angeles police chief

James Edgar Davis was an American police officer who served as the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1926 to 1929, and from 1933 to 1939. During his first term as LAPD chief, Davis emphasized firearms training. Under Davis, the LAPD developed its lasting reputation as an organization that relied on brute force to enforce public order. It also became publicly entangled in corruption. Members of the LAPD were revealed to have undertaken a campaign of brutal harassment, including the bombings of political reformers who had incurred the wrath of the department and the civic administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zev Yaroslavsky</span> American politician

Zev Yaroslavsky is a politician from Los Angeles County, California. He was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from District 3, an affluent district which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Westside of Los Angeles and coastal areas between Venice and the Ventura County line. He was first elected to the board in 1994. Yaroslavsky served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 to 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Zinzun</span> American politician

Michael Zinzun was an African American Black Panther and anti-police brutality activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skid Row, Los Angeles</span> Neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles

Skid Row is a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. The area is officially known as Central City East.

The Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) is a currently active community organization in Los Angeles with the stated aim of organizing marginalized groups such as the poor, homosexuals, blacks, and Latinos to prevent, expose, and resist abuse by police and seek legal redress for such abuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Los Angeles Police Department</span>

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was formed in 1869, and has since become the third-largest law enforcement agency in the United States. They have been involved in various events in history, such as the Black Dahlia murder, the Watts riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the North Hollywood shootout, the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, and the Rampart scandal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LAPD Metropolitan Division</span> Division of the Los Angeles Police Department

Metropolitan Division, commonly referred to as Metro Division or just Metro, is an elite division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) under its Special Operations Group. Metropolitan Division is responsible for managing the LAPD's specialized crime suppression, K-9, mounted, and SWAT units, named "platoons".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Highland Park Police Station</span> United States historic place

The Highland Park Police Station on York Boulevard in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California is the city's oldest surviving police station. Closed in 1983, the station is now operated as the Los Angeles Police Museum. It has been designated as a Historic Cultural Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. Kwaku Duren</span> American lawyer

B. Kwaku Duren is a controversial African American former lawyer, educator, writer, editor, Black Panther, long-time social, political and community activist; and a former convict who now lives and practices law in South Central Los Angeles. He has run for United States Congress three times and once for Vice President of the United States. As a young man, he spent nearly five years in California prisons for armed robbery. He began reading extensively and taking college classes while incarcerated and after his parole in the fall of 1970, he founded and chaired the National Poor People's Congress. A couple of years later, he and his younger sister, Betty Scott, along with Mary Blackburn and other community activists, founded an alternate school – the Intercommunal Youth Institute (1972–1975) – in Long Beach, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Beck</span> American former police chief in Los Angeles (born 1953)

Charles Lloyd Beck is a retired police officer, formerly serving as the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and subsequently as the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. A veteran of the department with over four decades as an officer, he is known for commanding and rehabilitating the Rampart Division after the Rampart scandal; and for technology enhancements during his time as Chief of Detectives. He agreed to be interim Superintendent of Police in Chicago in late 2019 while the city searches nationwide for a replacement for retiring Eddie Johnson. Beck took the helm of the Chicago Police Department on December 2, 2019 after Johnson was fired. On April 15, 2020, Beck stepped down and was replaced by former Dallas Police Department Chief David Brown, who had been nominated by Lightfoot to serve as permanent Superintendent. After his retirement he rejoined the Reserve Corps as a Reserve Police Officer and is assigned to the Office Of The Chief Of Police.

The Los Angeles Vanguard was a weekly newspaper established in 1976 and published in Los Angeles, California. Dave Lindorff was a founder and editor, along with journalists Woodrow "Tommy" Thompson, Dorothy Thompson, Ben Pleasants, Ron Ridenour, and Jim Horowitz. A number of the Vanguard founders had previously written for the Los Angeles Free Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LAPD Gangster Squad</span> Former anti-organized crime unit of the Los Angeles Police Department

The Gangster Squad, later known as the OrganizedCrime Intelligence Division (OCID), was a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed in 1946 to keep the East Coast Mafia and organized crime elements out of Los Angeles, California, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mack (civic leader)</span> American civic leader (1937–2018)

John Wesley Mack was an American activist in the civil rights movement. He was the executive director of the National Urban League chapter in Flint, Michigan, from 1964 to 1969. He served as the president of its Los Angeles chapter from 1969 to 2005, and as a member of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners from 2005 to 2013. He was an advocate for equal opportunities in education, law enforcement and economic empowerment for blacks and other minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LAPD Red Squad</span> Municipal secret police

The LAPD Red Squad is the common name for a division of the municipal Los Angeles Police Department, in California, United States, that was focused on limiting the activities of left-wing individuals and organizations in the city. Over the course of 50 years, LAPD "gathered some 2 million secret files...on all manner of legitimate dissenters."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater Los Angeles Association</span> 1920s civic group

The Greater Los Angeles Association was a 1920s civic-booster group of California, United States that promoted business interests in the area under the slogan "keep the white spot white". The slogan referenced monthly maps published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce magazine Nation's Business that used different colors to indicate different levels of commercial activity—spots with good levels were colored white.

References

  1. ↑ Arnold, Roxanne; Sappel, Joel (1984-02-23). "Nationally Orchestrated Campaign: Decree Leaves L.A. With Toughest Police-Spy Rules" . The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  2. ↑ staff (Feb 22, 1984). "A Judge Today Approved a 18 million settlement". United Press International .
  3. ↑ Sappell, Joel (Nov 18, 1981). "L.A. Police Scrutiny of Private Bradley Meetings Revealed". The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  4. ↑ Johnston, David (Apr 15, 1982). "LAPD to pay $27,500 in Alleged Terror Campaign". The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  5. ↑ Rainey, James (Sep 18, 1995). "President Seeks "Progressive" Stance for Union". The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  6. ↑ Sappel, Joel (Aug 12, 1983). "LAPD Role in Study of Subversives Told". The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  7. ↑ Merl, Jean (Jan 11, 1995). "L.A. Salutes Retiring Officer Involved in '80s Spy Scandal". The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  8. ↑ Felker-Kantor, Max (2018). Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD (Justice, Power, and Politics). North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 260. ISBN   9781469646848.
  9. ↑ Arnold, Roxanne; Sappel, Joel (1984-02-23). "Nationally Orchestrated Campaign: Decree Leaves L.A. With Toughest Police-Spy Rules" . The LA Times . Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  10. ↑ Felker-Kantor, Max (2018). Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD (Justice, Power, and Politics). North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 261. ISBN   9781469646848.
  11. ↑ Felker-Kantor, Max (2018). Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD (Justice, Power, and Politics). North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 269. ISBN   9781469646848.
  12. ↑ "Gates v. Superior Court".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.