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MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA REAFFIRMS OPPOSITION TO SWORN OFFICER FURLOUGHS AT LAPD OFFICER GRADUATION
Mayor welcomed the new officers and reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining current LAPD deployment levels
LOS ANGELES -- 10/09/09
- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today reaffirmed his opposition to sworn officer furloughs and restated his commitment to maintaining the Los Angeles Police Department’s current deployment levels at the LAPD officer graduation ceremony.The Mayor joined Chief William Bratton and friends and family of the new officers to welcome the 53 officers to the department. The officers completed 920 hours of training over the course of 28 weeks in areas of tactics, firearms training, Spanish, law, human relations, academics and physical conditioning.
The following are Mayor Villaraigosa’s LAPD graduation remarks as prepared for delivery:
I stand before this graduating class today with a great sense of pride, but also mindful that this is a bittersweet moment for the Los Angeles Police Department.
I feel pride for the families of the men and women who are now members of the finest police department in America, but bittersweet because they won’t have the privilege to serve under the man who transformed this Department into what it is today.
Chief William Bratton has served this City with vision and with courage since he first stepped foot into Parker Center.
Today, the City he is leaving is a City almost unrecognizable from the Los Angeles he first inherited seven years ago. Chief Bratton is leaving Los Angeles a stronger city, a safer city, and a more united city. And though he may be leaving, his legacy will forever be felt here in the City of Angels.
From this moment forward, we all share a responsibility to preserve the great progress we’ve made as a Department and as a City.
When you wear the badge of an LAPD officer, you hold a sacred trust with the people of Los Angeles, because every time they pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1. Every time they are confronted with violence in their community. Every time they face their darkest hour with nowhere else to turn.
You are the ones they call. You are the ones they look to. You are their last best hope.
There is no service more important to this City than the service each and every one of you provides as an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department.
There is nothing more valuable, nothing more important-than keeping our streets safe and our neighborhoods secure.
Safety is the cornerstone of our prosperity, and the foundation of our recovery from this economic crisis. Because right now - these are no ordinary times for the City of Los Angeles.
We have an historic budget deficit on our hands, and we’ve had to make some tough decisions to address it. There are some who argue that we can no longer afford a police force of 10,000 officers, who propose to halt all police hiring, to fire hundreds of new recruits, and lose hundreds more through attrition.
They say that shrinking this Department is an acceptable way to balance the budget.
Well, I say it’s not.
I don’t want to turn the clock back on the great progress we’ve made. I don’t want to return to the days where a badly outnumbered police force was seen as the enemy by some in the community, because officers didn’t have the time to interact with the residents they served.
I don’t want to return to the days when our officers struggled to keep the annual homicide rate below eleven hundred-nearly triple the homicides we saw last year.
Balancing the budget by shrinking this Department is quite simply the most inefficient, ineffective and counterproductive way to save money - and I will not support it.
Look at the statistics. Look at the positive role our Department is playing in the community. Look at the transformation that we’ve seen in some of our most dangerous neighborhoods.
Crime in Los Angeles is at a record-low because the number of police officers is at a record-high. We must maintain this Department at its current levels. I mean that in numbers, and I mean that in deployment.
That’s why I do not accept - and will not support - any plan to furlough our sworn personnel as an acceptable solution to balance the budget.
But we cannot ignore the reality of this economic crisis. If we want to protect this Department and our community, we are going to need to work together to make the tough choices, and we’re going to need every single one of you to make that happen.
Together, we’ll preserve the legacy and the reputation that this Department has fought so hard to earn, and uphold the oath that you swore when you first put on the uniform of an LAPD officer:
“To protect and serve.”
Thank you.