The fleet’s overall impact, is the rough equivalent of having an additional 2,400 gas-powered cars on the road in a county of 10 million people who are already exposed to some of the worst air pollution in the U.S.
These justifications for law enforcement’s “eye in the sky” presence are thinly sourced. L.A. police often cite a single study about crime deterrence that was conducted in the 1960s by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, but even the original study’s authors have said it was flawed; it failed to include data from 1965, for example, when the Watts uprising occurred. Elsewhere, the theory has been debunked outright by later studies that have also shown that any money supposedly saved by conducting helicopter patrols is canceled out by their enormous expenses.
LAPD likes its helicopters so much that the agency asked for two new ones in its proposed 2023 budget, claiming that they are mission critical and good for the environment.
The most recent figure is 46.7 million.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia and his staff conducted a first-ever audit of LAPD's airborne operation, the Air Support Division (ASD), also known as its helicopter program. The audit was conducted in response to calls from the community and some organizations who requested more information regarding the costs and performance of LAPD helicopters.
The report by the controller states the program costs about $46 million a year and claims 61% of flight time is not the highest priority. ASD is the largest municipal air operation in the world, and according to its website, it has 17 helicopters.
In 2014, an LAPD helicopter crew flew to the Hebrew Academy in Huntington Beach, where an LAPD chaplain dressed as Judah Maccabee, a key figure in the celebration of Hanukkah, handed out dreidels to schoolchildren.
The helicopter was arranged by the chaplain, who had a child attending the school, Smith said. He said the chaplain’s father was the head rabbi at the private school.
That event was considered “part of an educational and religious outreach,” Smith said.
The controller’s analysis of air operations from 2018 through 2022 found that there are typically two helicopters flying for 20 hours a day every day of the year, logging an average of 16,000 hours of flight time each year. The helicopters burn an estimated 761,600 gallons of fuel yearly, releasing more than 7,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the report, which said this output was equivalent to over 19m miles driven by gas-powered cars.
“Our audit’s findings strongly suggest that the LAPD’s current use of helicopters causes significant harm to the community without meaningful or reliable assessment of the benefits it may or may not deliver,” said the report from controller Kenneth Mejia, who was elected last year on promises to scrutinize LAPD spending.
The audit identified 783 instances of ceremonial “fly-by” activities of the helicopter unit over the five-year period. That included flights over LAPD graduations, retirements, funerals and community events. The office reported numerous instances that it said were “inefficient, inappropriate use of City funds”, including a six-hour flight for a gathering called a “Chili Fly-In”; seven “fly-by” activities at golf tournaments; and a roundtrip helicopter ride that took two LAPD officials from downtown headquarters to a meeting at a station 20 miles away.
the report said that neither the controller’s office nor LAPD can demonstrate that the helicopters have deterred crime.
Past reporting has found that helicopters can have devastating consequences in high-stress situations. In one case, the noise of an LAPD helicopter drowned out an officer’s shout that a man who police were surrounding “doesn’t have the knife”. An officer only heard the word “knife” and fatally shot the civilian, with the LA Times concluding that he probably would have survived the encounter if the helicopter had not arrived and escalated the situation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/11/los-angeles-police-helicopters-cost-benefit-dispute
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