Get Angry, Bratton Tells L.A.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton issued a challenge to the city Wednesday, saying that six straight days of killings must provoke residents and law officers to fight back.

The new chief said the 16 homicides and five officer-involved shootings since Friday evening -- mostly in South Los Angeles -- marked a rising crime trend that has been ignored by much of the rest of the city.

“I’m very disturbed and angry,” he said in an interview. “I need this city angry about gangbangers shaping the perception of Los Angeles.”

The rash of killings, the first major test for Bratton as chief, comes near the close of one of the most violent years in recent Los Angeles history, with the city bucking decreases in serious crime seen in other major U.S. cities.

There have been 594 homicides in Los Angeles so far this year, compared with 587 for all of 2001.

During the 1990s, homicides in Los Angeles peaked at 1,092 in 1992 and fell to a decade low of 419 in 1998.

Police say there is no simple explanation for the increase.

The killings of the last few days -- the result of more than a dozen shootings -- are believed to be tied to numerous gang rivalries, some internal, officers said.

The shootings that began Friday evening were described by Bratton as “tit-for-tat” violence against gang members and passersby.

“People will think nothing of shooting at someone because they looked at them wrong or were wearing the wrong color or drove by at the wrong time,” the chief said.

Other officers said much of the recent violence has been carried out by a new generation of young men eager to prove their courage.

Bratton, hired by Mayor James K. Hahn this fall to reduce crime in the city, said the community should not blame police.

“I read today one woman saying it was the police’s fault,” he said.

“It’s not the police’s fault. The community has a degree of fault to share -- there are places in this city where values have broken down, there are fourth- and fifth-generation gang members.”

Bratton’s comments, made in an interview at his downtown office, came just hours before his second in command, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, announced that detectives in South Los Angeles have been instructed to respond, in addition to patrol officers, to all shootings that result in injury or death.

One of Bratton’s first actions as chief was to augment the police presence in South Los Angeles, where 44% of the city’s homicides have occurred this year.

The department is hoping to forge better ties with the black population living south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The community has long had a troubled relationship with the LAPD and was upset by Hahn’s ouster of former Chief Bernard C. Parks earlier this year.

Parks, who is black, was criticized by Hahn for failing to stem crime.

“Our goal is to work closely with the community,” said McDonnell, flanked by activists in a courtyard at the 77th Street Division station, many of whom stayed for a community summit.

The wave of violence crested over the weekend, with 14 deaths from Friday to Monday.

Late Tuesday night, a man was fatally shot on Wilshire Boulevard near Sycamore Avenue.

Hours earlier in South Los Angeles, seven more people were shot in three separate attacks that took place within blocks of each other.

A youth, Ernest Williams, 17, was killed. Two were critically wounded and four others sustained gunshot wounds.

Police said they do not believe Williams was a gang member and may have been a victim of mistaken identity.

By Wednesday, two suspected assailants were in custody on unrelated charges.

Bratton described many of the city’s violent criminals as “mental nitwits who don’t have the same value systems as you and I.”

He said the ready availability of guns is fueling Los Angeles’ spiraling crime rate.

By comparison, homicides in New York, where Bratton served as commissioner in the early 1990s, have fallen by 12% from last year.

“Existing laws are not adequate to control guns in this city,” Bratton said. “Too many people here are comfortable carrying [illegal] guns.”

Bratton said he believes stiffer local laws will help get more guns off the street. He has asked a consultant to help draft such legislation for city and state officials to consider.

The chief in recent days has visited shooting scenes to see the aftermath of violence for himself.

“I want to be there,” he said at a press briefing this week. “I want to feel angry.”

Bratton said Wednesday that one of his primary responsibilities as chief will be to get residents throughout the city -- including areas untouched by serious crime -- to share his outrage over the killings.

He outlined what he said must be a collaborative effort between the community and law enforcement.

Since being sworn in to the top LAPD job last month, Bratton has asked his officers to practice “assertive policing,” taking action when they see laws being broken, whether it is a weapons violation or drinking in public.

Bratton describes the new mandate as a shift in recent police behavior in Los Angeles, where the repercussions of the Rampart scandal and a strict disciplinary system he immediately eased made many officers reluctant to do their jobs.

“We had officers who were going about their job with blinders on,” he said.

“They’d respond to their 911 calls and, if they saw a kid on the street corner with a bulge in their waistband that looked like a gun, they’d keep on going.”

Bratton, who says racial profiling has no place in law enforcement, made this promise: “If you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, you will never attract the attention of the police.”

But he said if the community wants Los Angeles police officers to do their jobs, it must accept tools available to police such as “stop and frisk” laws that allow officers to search suspects on the street.

In South Los Angeles, community members said they want an end to the killing.

“The problem is much bigger than the police,” said the Rev. Frederick O. Murph of Brookins Community African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“It has to do with jobs and opportunity. Until we begin to address the real issue, nothing is going to change. The police is a Band-Aid on a real bad wound.”

“Sweet” Alice Harris, a community activist who has enthusiastically embraced the new chief, said: “We are watching our children die like dogs.... We have to stop this.”

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Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.