LAPD's Bratton blames vendors for mapping errors
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton conceded today that the LAPD’s crime map had significant omissions but said it will stay online while the problems, first identified by The Times, are corrected.
Bratton -- speaking at a news conference to announce a gang crackdown -- said despite significant omissions the fraction of crimes that are plotted on the map are accurate. He said he believed it remains a valuable public service despite the missing information.
The Times found that nearly 40% of the crimes reported in official LAPD summaries did not appear on the publicly-available crime map at lapdcrimemaps.org.
Bratton, who was asked several questions about the mapping errors by reporters, blamed the problems on the private vendors hired to develop the site.
Thanking The Times for its discovery, Bratton said, “I have no issue with The Times. I have an issue with the vendor.”
He said the vendors, LightRay Productions and PSOMAS, are working on the problems “full time” and would fix them at no cost to the city.
Bratton drew a clear distinction between the public map, which he continued to describe as one of the best in the United States, and the internal CompStat reports used to evaluate trends and guide deployment, which he insisted are of the highest integrity.
“At no time was the public safety jeopardized,” he said.
The Times discovered the magnitude of the problem while developing its own online map to display LAPD data. While the department’s official crime tally recorded more than 52,000 serious crimes from Jan. 1 through June 13 of this year, the public mapping site contained fewer than 33,000 for the same period.
As a result of the article about the errors, Bratton said today that he has asked City Atty. Carmen Trutanich to review the terms of the release of electronic crime data to The Times and decide whether the department should continue to provide the information to The Times and other outlets.
Bratton expressed concern that demands for equal access to the information could cause an expensive burden on the department’s resources.
He was worried, he said, that he’d have to give it to anyone “in his underwear in a basement somewhere.”
-- Ben Welsh and Doug Smith reporting from LAPD's Metropolitan Dispatch Center
Related story: LAPD's public database omits nearly 40% of this year's crimes
Read the LAPD news release: LAPD Crime Maps
Why shouldn't any citizen or resident--even someone sitting in a basement in underwear--be entitled to this information generated by a public agency? Bratton's is a typical bureaucratic response aimed at avoiding possible criticism of the LAPD. He ought to get used to the notion that he is a public servant, and that among the people he serves are those sitting in basements in their underwear.
Posted by: Peter | July 10, 2009 at 02:06 AM
I'm a real estate appraiser in LA. I've been using this information in my narrative appraisals for a while. That means I've been under estimating crime. I thought the luxury South Park downtown loft area was a high crime area. That means it's a super high crime area. I do remember once reading about a murder in the Times. I went to find it on the crime map to see the exact location and couldn't find it. I waited a few weeks and still couldn't find the murder on the map. That explains things.
Posted by: Mary | July 10, 2009 at 10:40 AM
According to the California public records act.
"the Legislature, mindful of the right of individuals to privacy, finds and declares that access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state. "
and
"Public records" includes any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public's business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics."
Posted by: tonto | July 16, 2009 at 04:40 PM