I think these three have seriously jeopardized their chances to "Serve and Protect"...
LAPD cadets arrested after stealing patrol cars, police say
(CNN)The Los Angeles Police Department arrested and charged three of its own juvenile cadets after they stole and crashed three police vehicles, authorities said.
The three teens, two males ages 15 and 17, and a 16-year-old female, were all members of the LAPD cadet program, Police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday.
They were not identified because they are minors.
In addition to the three vehicles, police also recovered two Tasers, two police radios and a bulletproof vest, he said.
The theft went undetected until Wednesday, when a watch commander doing daily inventory noticed two black-and-white LAPD patrol vehicles missing from their fleet.
The investigation into finding the vehicles promptly focused on the female cadet who had been assigned to the location where the vehicles went missing, Beck said.
The female teenager was last seen on surveillance video putting gas on one of the vehicles that was missing. A few hours later, the missing patrol cars were spotted side-by-side on the streets of South Los Angeles.
LAPD officers attempted to stop the teens driving the patrol cars, but both fled and at one point during the pursuit, went different directions, initiating two police chases throughout the streets of South Los Angeles.
"One of the pursuits terminated when the pursuit vehicle was involved in a traffic collision ...The second pursuit ended when the pursuit vehicle collided with a non-involved motorist," Beck said.
The teenagers, one of whom was wearing an LAPD bulletproof vest, were arrested and taken in for questioning. During the investigation, one confessed to having stolen a third patrol car, Beck said, and possibly having had that vehicle for over two weeks.[So a teenager steals an LAPD squad car, and nobody notices it's missing for two weeks... ]
Police found the third patrol car parked in front of a residence near the neighborhood where the two other vehicles had been spotted, and recovered two Tasers and two radios.
Beck said cadets are not allowed to drive patrol cars, [apparently they didn't get the memo] and the teens had outsmarted the checkout system set in place to account for patrol vehicles.
"They accessed our inventory system, logged in under a sergeant's name that they knew and was on vacation, and impersonated him to cover their use of their vehicles," Beck said.[Let me make sure I've got this straight...the security system for Los Angeles Police Department squad cars and other police equipment, is set up in such a way that a teenager logging in under a vacationing police sergeant's name can drive off undetected with anything they want... (ATTENTION TERRORISTS...It's all go in Los Angeles..).this reads like something out of a Breaking Bad episode...you just can't make this shit up...]
Beck reiterated that a full inventory has been done of all police vehicles and firearms. All 1,800 vehicles are accounted for and no firearms ever went missing.[Given what happened here, the citizens of Los Angeles should find that assertion very reassuring...]
"We are in the early stages of the investigation. We believe that the cadets may have impersonated police officers using these vehicles," he said.
"I have conducted a top-to-bottom review of our cadet program," he said.[How about a top-to-bottom head-rolling house cleaning, that starts with the Police Chief who presided over an equipment security system that allowed three squad cars (one for two weeks) to go missing and unreported until three teenagers took them for a joy ride...]
Junior Cadets
The Junior Cadets program introduces youth, ages 9 through 13, to the law enforcement profession and provides the physical and mental preparation necessary to make the transition from Junior Cadets to the Cadet Program, or any other Department sponsored youth programs. The interaction with police officers helps young people develop a sense of personal responsibility that will help them become constructive, responsible, and productive members of the community.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
When I first read this story this morning in the SF Chron, I thought it was kind of funny...
a story about a trio of teenage Junior Police Cadets (Not actual "Police Cadets"...not people who had been accepted into real police academy training...more like the Police Academy version of Explorer Scouts...)
Getting over on the LAPD, to the point that they could steal three LAPD squad cars, and other equipment, without being caught, until they were dumb enough to start joy-riding around, playing junior cop...
I confess, there's a certain amount of humor in that...
But what's not funny, is that the second largest metropolitan police department in the United States, (after the NYC police department) the LAPD, (with the Los Angeles area being the target of a number of terrorist attacks that have been thwarted) has a security system so poor that a 16 year old girl with a minimal knowledge of LAPD securitiy procedures can master-mind the theft of three squad cars with no one being the wiser...
Instead of prosecuting her, they should hire her as a security consultant...
If the "security system" for the LAPD is so unbelievably awful that a squad car stolen by a teenager could go undetected for two weeks, just imagine how bad it would be if obtaining LAPD squad cars were that easy as part of a real terrorist plot...
Not to defend the LAPD, but the system used to track their squad car inventory (and probably other items in the LAPD) is probably very outdated and in order to upgrade they will need city mayorial/legislative/whatever?? approval along with funding for the upgrade.
But you do have to wonder if there was an adult (squad car pool attendant, etc) who noticed any teen getting into and driving away with squad cars and why they didn't question said teen(s).
But you do have to wonder if there was an adult (squad car pool attendant, etc) who noticed any teen getting into and driving away with squad cars and why they didn't question said teen(s).
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
when a watch commander doing daily inventory noticed two black-and-white LAPD patrol vehicles missing from their fleet.
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