On Wednesday evening, RAND Corporation, held a public forum at the institution's headquarters in Santa Monica entitled "L.A. Public Safety After Bratton".

The forum was moderated by Greg Ridgeway, director of the RAND Safety and Justice Program and the RAND Center on Quality Policing.

Mr. Ridgeway questioned LAPD Police Chief William Bratton on his 7 years tenure and what does it mean going forward as the city prepares for a new Police Chief.

Mr. Bratton provided the audience a variety of documentations and statistics regarding the LAPD efforts since 2002 by pointing out that his department had made a total of 1.2 Million arrests, 26.1 Million calls, 6.2 Million radio calls and grand total of $8 Billion.

Mr. Bratton stressed that the 7 years of investments meant critical planning served as a road map for crime prevention through technology, community policing and critical analysis of DNA to solve crimes for the City of Los Angeles.

However, the word "Investment" was repeated over and over again by the outgoing Police Chief at least 10 times, which meant as a code word for Angelenos to pay more taxes one way or the other in the future to maintain existing technology in crime prevention.

In the post 9-11 Era, the LAPD stepped up the efforts in the area of Counter-Terrorism by coordinating and communicating with the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies. 

As critical is it to protect the Homeland and the City of Los Angeles from a devestating attack, the subject of LAPD's Special Order 40 was never brought up.  Special Order 40 prohibits police officers from "initiat(ing) police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person."  This prevents officers from inquiring about the immigration status of an individual and from contacting federal immigration officials about an individual's immigration status.

What struck this contributor was when Mr. Bratton remarked, "We are taking defensive measures for public safety."

Then, with so much "investments" has been made thanks to the Taxpayers of Los Angeles, How come the LAPD has not come grips with the issue relative to Special Order 40? 

The last thing we need to be concerned about is a terrorist roaming free in the streets of Los Angeles without being questioned regarding his/her immigration status.  If one has no business being in the city, then he/she must be detained by a LAPD officer and transferred to ICE for deportation proceedings, because public safety must never be compromised. 

Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine suggested amendments to Special Order 40 that would have "require that LAPD officers notify federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities of known gang members who are in this country illegally. The motion also affirmed that LAPD has a responsibility and duty to turn over criminals who are illegal immigrants to ICE."

The New LAPD Chief of Police should not bow to political pressure from the Mayor, City Council or even the rank and file officers for more funds, but acknowledge that Angelenos deserve straight talk about the dollars that has been poured into the department and tackle the issue of Special Order 40.