Talk:Los Angeles Police Department

New articles for organization & misconduct? (+ merging, misc cleanup)

JohnFromPinckney has done some (very helpful!!) pruning, but this article's still deep in the weeds and the full contents listing should be easily visible; hard agree with Avatar317's note that more sections should be summarized with links to their respective full articles. Relatedly, I think (1) we need separate articles for the "Organization" and "Controversies and misconduct" sections, as the NYPD has with "Organization of the New York City Police Department" and "New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct". As an informal check, is there general consensus among those following talk?

If so, I can do this for the latter, but am wondering: (2) can someone else make the organization article? I genuinely don't understand the section well enough to do so myself, as it's unwieldy, unclear, filled with redundancies, and appears to mostly just be a list of office/bureau names that should be moved to a dedicated article; I think (3) a section for "services" would be a more relevant/helpful overview. I axed some of the repetitive material but didn't remove content (except what noted "now"); I did remove subheadings for short glosses, instead marking the name in bold and keeping any extant internal links.

The Controversies and misconduct section should give a summary overview including the department's most notable controversies, with the rest included in a separate article. As with "organization" I haven't removed any content for now, just merged several of the decade subheadings; I'll wait until I've heard from people here before making a new article. // Knifegames (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

This is more a comment than a reply, but: the problem with our organization section may well stem from the fact that the LAPD has a crazy organization. See their org chart. I'm surprised even they know who's in what section/department/unit and what their responsibilities are. It's hard to tell from the unit names or simple logic. (So I'm not keen myself to get into that article right now. Sorry!)

Also, you did some great work on the article, Knifegames. I wasn't sure I liked the inline bold of office names, for ultra-strict MOS reasons, but I think it looks a lot better this way and also does wonders for the TOC. Cool! — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 04:06, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Somehow I missed this ages ago, JohnFromPinckney; thanks so much!! Agreed on MOS-based uncertainty, but I figured adding a dash of organization / condensing TOC was priority––which I suppose was correct given that I still haven't gotten around to making either separate section-article. I'm glad you included the "organization" (!!!) chart here if only as confirmation that I'm unlikely to find a more legible source… Knifegames (talk) 19:32, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced job descriptions

Regarding this edit: Thank you, Crossroads, for rewording the copyvio. Could you point me to the source for "The Chief of Staff is responsible for coordinating the flow of information from command staff to ensure that the Chief is fully informed prior to making decisions, performing and coordinating special administrative audits and investigations, and assisting, advising, and submitting recommendations to the Chief of Police in matters involving employee relations" and "The Professional Standards Bureau is the investigative arm of the Chief to identify and report corruption and employee behavior that discredits the LAPD or violates a department policy, procedure, or practice"? Both cite an organizational chart which doesn't include job descriptions. –dlthewave ☎ 22:37, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

To me, "unsourced" means "uncited". Since the cited source apparently doesn't cover it, I guess it's more of a "failed verification". I would follow WP:PRESERVE, though, and tag it. These aren't extraordinary claims and would belong. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:53, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

It's bureaucratic gobbledygook. Unless secondary reliable sources consider this role noteworthy enough to describe in detail (as they do for White House Chief of Staff), Wikipedia shouldn't either. We wouldn't list the duties of senior managers at KFC, so why should we do it for this organization? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:01, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

We wouldn't go into exhaustive detail on every case of misconduct by KFC employees either. Apples and oranges. Have you checked for sources? WP:PRIMARY sources are not forbidden. Removing how misconduct is handled by the LAPD is POV. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:11, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: Did you see this comment on the Noticeboard about this topic? Also, to address the elephant in the room, Snooganssnoogans, I feel that you're making an error when you see organisational information as a distraction from police misconduct. I don't know if you're familiar with Amnesty International/Human Rights Watch reports, but they typically include a chapter laying out chain of command of the groups involved. May seem mundane, but its an crucial part of establishing institutional responsibility. Explaining the structure of a police force is complimentary to detailing the scandals, not detrimental. --RaiderAspect (talk) 05:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

That comment made me rethink my idea of how much of this stuff is necessary. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The functions of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Wikipedia are not the same, so I fail to se the logic of that argument. I'm unaware of any Wikipedia guidelines that instruct us to mimic HRW reports in how Wikipedia pages structure content. If any RS, including Amnesty and HRW cover what the "Chief of Staff" of the LAPD does in detail in relation to the numerous scandals of the LAPD, then Wikipedia can add similar details on that position. The problem here is that Wikipedia should not to fill pages to the brim with bureaucratic gobbledigook that communicates nothing of substance to readers, is copy-pasted from org websites, and cannot be substantiated with any secondary sourcing. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

If any RS, including Amnesty and HRW cover what the "Chief of Staff" of the LAPD does in detail in relation to the numerous scandals of the LAPD, then Wikipedia can add similar details on that position. - That's a good point. I don't know what the appropriate trade-off here is. I agree that we shouldn't have excessive detail, and I generally always push for Independent Sources to show that some topic is not UNDUE, but I don't know how to balance that with PRIMARY in cases of Police Departments. ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Crossroads (& also dlthewave ☎, Snooganssnoogans, Avatar317, JohnFromPinckney)––back because a slew of outlets are covering a newly-discovered major controversy concerning the department, & I want to acknowledge this exchange now in case I add more material later.

To be honest, I don't follow the debate: my understanding of due and undue weight is that coverage of a given "viewpoint" should be proportionate to its coverage in reliable sources, and there is zero question that the number of reliable sources covering misconduct in the LAPD vastly exceeds the number documenting the organization's chain of command. Following the example above, if KFC were primarily known for the misconduct of its employees, then yes, there would be more detail about their misconduct––and as an aside, it appears controversies and criticism are far more prominent on that page than this one. (As a second aside, apparently KFC once apologized for a chicken shortage "by taking out adverts in British newspapers showing the company's initials rearranged to read "FCK", which is just delightful.) Even the online Encyclopædia Britannica has implicit criticisms in its first sentence on the LAPD and has moved to riots by the third.

I want to be generous in my view of others' work here, but I will admit to suspecting that the glut of poorly-sourced administrative minutiae is driven at least in part by a desire to move criticisms down the page; your average user viewing this on their phone will need to rest their fingers from scrolling before seeing any critique beyond the lead. My concern doesn't seem totally unreasonable given things like the current section on "Public opinion", which cites the LAist coverage of a community trust survey rather than a longer & more thorough article published in the Los Angeles Times the same day––presumably because the latter gives more weight to respondent criticisms (e.g., ~37% supported "completely dismantling the police department").

There are separate articles for the Organization of the NYPD and NYPD corruption and misconduct (though the latter needs some work), and the same is clearly necessary here. I mentioned this above (/here) & didn't follow up, which is on me; I'll start turning these sections into their own pages & leave a note here when they're published. the section on misconduct into its own page, and continue to be at a loss about the rest...

// Knifegames (talk) 23:12, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Suspicions of motivation can be a two way street. The arguments above still apply. I think that organization is very likely to be covered in secondary sources. There are going to be plenty of sources about the LAPD that aren't in the article. In a previous RfC this Encyclopedia of Police Science source was pointed to, and it said some positive things, but right now it is pretty much unused. Local media sources can also be used. IMO this topic area is majorly underedited except to add misconduct info - that has its place, but if no one wants to work on other aspects, that leads to imbalance. I would only do spinoff articles if the size justifies it, not just because the NYPD article did it. Some LAPD units have their own articles already, so that's also something to keep in mind. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Suspicions of motivation can be a two way street. –– Absolutely! But my suspicion is that people are letting their feelings take precedence over their investment in Wikipedia's core content policies, and it's because the extensive, unsourced administrative copy is very difficult to explain by other means.

Any reasonable person could contribute coverage of criticisms of the LAPD, because those criticisms are extensively discussed in reliable sources (it's actually difficult to find sources that don't address them), but supporting much of the rest included here is pretty tough! I did my best when I reorganized / cleaned up the "Organization" section, but I was hindered by a lack of sources (yes, I did search for them) and a lot of confusing copy. The then-quite-outdated "Firearms" section wasn't as bewildering, but it was certainly time-consuming, as it required searching the equipment page for each individual weapon and then trying variants to see if they had updated the model; because I could not find any comprehensive secondary sources, it was hard to put together anything more cohesive than an atomized list.

I followed the conversation's turn here too, but it's worth noting that dlthewave ☎ didn't say anything about misconduct, and this thread was (politely!) started because of a position that we all hopefully share: that it's a problem for someone to add a passage on information that is difficult to substantiate, not discussed by commonly accepted sources, and "supported" with a link to a PDF chart of pictures and nametags. Regardless of what it means to you, Wikipedia:Verifiability *opens* with "WP:UNSOURCED":

"All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." (emphasis in the original)

To be clear: as long as said views aren't leading to biased editing, I don't really care about any given editor's beliefs; we're contributing to an encyclopedia, not meeting for dinner and drinks. I sometimes contribute non-critical research to articles concerning people and organizations that I do not personally value, like, or respect, and I regularly remove "positive" content from articles concerning people/things that I do value if that content appears to be original research, can't be verified, etc.

All this aside, some fruitless efforts reminded me why I dropped the idea of making a separate organization page myself last time: there just aren't adequate sources. I do think we'll need a separate page for misconduct, though; new edits will inevitably continue to be weighted in that direction, if only because that's the subject matter reliable sources more frequently address. I'll first try to integrate some of that information a bit more by working on the "history" section. (edited to be less obnoxious) // Knifegames (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I might take a stab at creating something like Organization of the New York City Police Department. If we're going to cover the entire organizational structure regardless of sourcing, it should probably be spun off. –dlthewave ☎ 21:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

My initial concerns were copyright violations and unsourced statements, but looking over the article today it's clear that the organizational structure is given far too much space, detail and prominence compared to its coverage in independent. This is surely unintentional, and a good first step would be to simply move the Controversies section closer to the top. It looks to me like someone essentially copied the LAPD-sourced organizational chart into prose and added unsourced, mundane descriptions such as "The Transit Services Bureau supervises the Transit Services Group, responsible for providing security and law enforcement to all of the bus and rail lines within the city of Los Angeles, and the Traffic Group, responsible for overseeing the four Geographical Traffic Divisions which handles traffic-related duties such as accident investigation and the issuing of citations/tickets." Keep in mind that this is sourced entirely to LAPD itself, raising NPOV concerns. Although a brief overview of the organizational structure and divisions would be appropriate, the current article goes into way too much detail in my opinion. –dlthewave ☎ 21:02, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Dlthewave and Knifegames. Editors need to seriously trim the bureaucratic gobbledygook. At the very least, it needs to be relegated to the bottom of the article. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The positioning of the controversies section is an independent question of these issues. There are no other articles on anything that I've seen where controversies are detailed well before basic information about the topic. It's an absurd placement and clearly pushes a POV about what editors want to be prominent. Per MOS:BODY, The usual practice is to name and order sections based on the precedent of similar articles. And what are these supposed sources that delve into details of misconduct before even basic information about the topic? Some (although I think only one has been mentioned so far) may mention it briefly early on, but we already do that by mentioning it in the lead. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:02, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

One possible solution is to (1) split off most of the controversies and misconduct stuff into a separate article as was proposed, then (2) integrate the rest into the History section. As it is, that doesn't mention really historically-prominent stuff like the Rodney King beating and ensuing riots. That's an odd telling of history. Certainly history of misconduct is a part of history, and done neutrally and without undue weight, I wouldn't see why that couldn't be high up as part of that section. I emphasize that this only works if we employ WP:Summary style for the articles on misconduct itself and for independently notable instances of it. I think the nature of this topic may be poorly suited to separate sections in this article for criticism as suggested by WP:STRUCTURE. We would of course link prominently to the split-off article, probably at the top of the new combined History section. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:15, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the controversies cannot be put before basic info about the police force. However, the Controversies seem to be more notable than either "Public Opinion" or "Fallen Officers". I think it could be moved before those two sections.

Along with that, the entire "Rank and Insignia" section seems like it was copied out of a hiring brochure. I'm not sure it's notable at all. It can probably just be removed which would help cleanup the article quite a bit. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 05:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

"Basic info" about the organization is not exactly basic. It's endless bureaucratic gobbledygook, pictures of insignias and ranks, and descriptions and locations of all LAPD buildings. Things that are of zero interest to most readers. Whereas the controversies are part and parcel of the organization's history and prominence, as well as the history of LA. The controversies should obviously be ahead of the unreadable bureaucracy content. Within or below the history section seems fine with me. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:41, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: I think you and I are largely in agreement. But I'd focus on how entire sections of this page are not notable and have no sources beyond the LAPD's website, instead of calling it "bureaucratic gobbledygook". Once that's cleaned up, the basic info at the top will really be basic and notable info. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:07, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I address this below. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Crossroads, I'm not sure why you moved Controversies back to the very bottom since there's ongoing discussion leaning towards moving it higher up based on its sheer weight among reliable sources. Let me repeat: It's not what we think should be prominent, it's what reliable soutces tell us should be prominent. Your rationale seems to boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and the fact that other articles are organized a certain way, which really doesn't cut it and smacks of POV pushing. I'm certainly open to discussing where to put it; I think it could be a subsection of History without much (or any) trimming. Splitting is a possibility but I'm concerned that it could turn into a WP:POVFORK with this main article turning into whitewashed, overly positive coverage. –dlthewave ☎ 16:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I reverted to the WP:STATUSQUO. For the status quo to remain during discussion is standard per WP:CON and WP:BRD. What "smacks of POV pushing" is insisting detailing controveries immediately after the history and before literally everything else, unlike any RS that has actually been presented and against MOS:BODY which I quoted above. Per that quote, how other articles are organized is relevant. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I can't work on this for another day or two, but want to quickly note that this from Crossroads is exactly what I think should happen (admittedly a bit buried in my comment!):

One possible solution is to (1) split off most of the controversies and misconduct stuff into a separate article as was proposed, then (2) integrate the rest into the History section. As it is, that doesn't mention really historically-prominent stuff like the Rodney King beating and ensuing riots. That's an odd telling of history. Certainly history of misconduct is a part of history, and done neutrally and without undue weight, I wouldn't see why that couldn't be high up as part of that section.

I'll get to editing the history section ASAP––a combination of some *extremely* uncontroversial background (e.g., early 20th century annexation of surrounding communities leading to a population boom in LA) & some of the most significant events under misconduct.

dlthewave ☎, I need to dash & haven't gotten through this entire thread yet, but want to note quickly (since I think we're on the same page with most of this!) that the primary difference with this plan is that the controversies section would stay lower down on the page––but, rather than having misconduct cordoned off as a subsection, the "History" section detail the ways these events shaped the department. For example, what conditions led to William Parker's upending the traditional model of police chief as mayoral appointee? How and why did he change police training and demeanor? How did this affect community engagement? Police brutality as part of the department's history, rather than as side note or separate timeline––again, I'll start this ASAP, but I think it lessens the importance of the ordering of sections.

I still think this page should keep a more detailed misconduct section, but there's a great deal that can be moved to a separate article; I can have that up within the week. // Knifegames (talk) 22:07, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Much appreciated. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Question: Would it be reasonable to have a vote to see if parts of this page exceed WP:TOOMUCH and should be removed? In particular, I'm thinking about the list of bureaus and the entire rank and insignia section, including the terminology. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 23:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

1) Misconduct: I suggest that we have a separate article to detail all the misconduct, but that in this article, we move the historical misconduct (pre ~2000 - now 20 years ago) into the History section, and tie it into explanations of how/if that caused changes in the department, and rename the last section to "Recent Controversies and misconduct".

2) I vote to remove most of the corporate structure/awards/rank that cannot be independently sourced. ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:14, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Such seems more suited to a separate discussion heading. However, editors should first look for sources that cover that material, and add them, rather than being eager to cut it all out. That past editors to this page lazily wrote a ton of material by just sourcing to the LAPD website is not a valid reason to not discuss encyclopedic information about the department. Conversely, just because the most skilled editors of the page have been focused on adding information about misconduct does not mean that is nearly the only thing secondary sources talk about. People should follow WP:PRESERVE. Sources by the news media or about how law enforcement operates will likely cover operational information. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Just as a note, for straightforward facts about things like rank structure there's nothing wrong with using primary sources. See WP:PSTS. Also, I would oppose removing it. No it's not the most notable of facts and one that's probably not discussed much in secondary sources, but it is a pretty basic item to include to allow reassess to use this article as a quick reference for facts. Articles are not always read as a full narrative, and using the TOC to find a specific summary of thinks like rank of bureaus is part of the purpose of an encyclopedia. Removing them would make the article significantly less useful as a reference tool and be a complete mistake. oknazevad (talk) 12:52, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: Among other things, WP:PSTS says this: "be cautious about basing large passages on [primary sources]", and in this case we have entire sections based on nothing other than the LAPD's website.

And I'm also referring to WP:TOOMUCH: "Is it something the topic is widely known for? What is its connection to the topic's notability? Any indiscriminate detail should be removed. ... Wikipedia is not supposed to be a collection of every single fact about a subject."

But I recognize that this is a subjective judgment, and that's why I'm suggesting putting it up for a vote. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Compromise? Though looking through conversations above, I do think it could be a reasonable compromise to move most of the details that only come from the LAPD's website to some other article for people who choose to read the minutiae. IMO, this main article should be focused on how and why the LAPD is notable. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Then you have a whole article based on a primary source. The subject belongs here, but improved. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with your position. But how does one "improve" non-notable minutiae, without deleting it? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

One has to check secondary sources about LAPD operation. Then one can see what is non-noteworthy minutiae to be deleted and what can be improved by better sourcing. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:10, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I did two searches. The only places where I've found info about the ranks are:

1) LAPD's website

2) A store which sells their badges to them

3) In two different places on wikipedia.

Not only is this minutiae on this page, it's also on Los Angeles Police Department resources. Can we please delete it from this page now, and provide a link over to the other one? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 02:59, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Well then that's one example of something we can cut. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:36, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Adding info about LAPD Covid?

In doing a cursory search about the LAPD, there are lots of sources discussing Covid within the LAPD, including 10 deaths, and lawsuits opposing the vaccinations mandate.

It seems this might be worth adding at least a couple of sentences about.

Thoughts on inclusion? If so, where should it go?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:17, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

In bed with Scientology.

Just go to Scientology Celebrity Center. They act as security for them. Heck, one of their officers sang - in uniform - at one of their events! 2600:1002:A106:7060:B5DB:F8A1:CBA3:E30A (talk) 23:50, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Please remember to tag redirects that you create per WP:REDCAT.

voorts (talk/contributions) 22:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)