By Karen Ocamb

After several years of slowly winning over the LGBT community, the Los Angeles Police Department may be facing a serious public relations problem. According to West Hollywood officials, LAPD undercover vice officers have been luring gay men across the border from West Hollywood into the city of Los Angeles, making suggestive sexual overtures, then arresting them for lewd conduct.

The LAPD "has recently begun under-cover vice/sting/entrapment operations in residential neighborhoods bordering West Hollywood between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue, along Waring, Havenhurst, La Jolla and surrounding streets," West Hollywood City Councilmember Jeff Prang wrote in a Dec. 12 letter to openly gay L.A. Police Commissioner Shelley Freeman.

"I am writing to express my concern with the undercover tactics currently being employed by the LAPD. Lewd conduct stings have been disproportionally used against gay men by law enforcement for decades and are an historically significant root of distrust of law enforcement by many in the LGBT community," Prang wrote. "While no one should defend lewd conduct behavior, I would argue that a strategy of education, intervention, and prevention is just as effective in achieving the desired goals, and is less antagonistic and prone to abuse than lewd conduct vice operations."

Neither Prang, nor West Hollywood Hate Crimes Coordinator Rich Ryan, who is concerned the stings will re-kindle gay fear of law enforcement and stymie reporting of crime, nor other LGBT community activists nor the LGBT press, were alerted that the lewd conduct issue would be taken up at the Dec. 20 meeting of the L.A. Police Commission. The mainstream media, however, was notified and duly reported the LAPD clamp down on lewd conduct by gay men. Indeed, Fox 11 had been invited for a "ride-along" and showed dark, grainy pictures of men walking darkened streets, with at least one arrest. The LAPD never contacted IN Los Angeles magazine for either a ride-along or a cautionary story, despite IN's LGBT readership.

The Police Commission received a six-page report by LAPD Chief William Bratton entitled Reducing the Cruising and Criminal Activity in the Alley North of Melrose Avenue. By a vote of 4-0, the Police Commission accepted the report and its recommendations which include installing an iron gate in the alley north of Melrose between La Jolla and Kilkea Avenues, installing better lighting in a six-block radius, posting signs, and working with neighbors to clean up their yards and repair fences.

"This is an issue of serious concern to this commission, as well as the department," Commission President John Mack said, according to KCBS 2 News. "I'm sure no one would like to have this kind of behavior on their lawns or their residences."

Bratton's report indicates that the stings started around Oct. 8 when, "in response to complaints from the local residents," the Department embarked "on an aggressive problem-solving partnership and proactive enforcement campaign to target the ongoing problem. In addition to deploying additional personnel resources, the Department has reached out to the community stakeholders in order to join forces."

One community meeting with "stakeholders" on Nov. 3 deemed a "success" included discussion of "various crime prevention tactics ... More signficiantly, there was great support for the Department's efforts." However, Prang told IN, no mention was made of undercover sting operations. Indeed, Bratton's report only says that "Hollywood Area patrol and vice personnel have continued to target the impacted neighborhood with increased high visiblity traffic enforcement and undercover surveillance operations."

In an interview with KCBS 2 News, LAPD Capt. Ron Sanchez, commanding officer of the Hollywood Area, said the problems occur after bars and clubs in West Hollywood close around 2 a.m. and patrons spill out into the neighborhoods. "The activity is so blatant that we don't have to look hard to find it," Sanchez said, though he didn't define "blatant." He said police were targetting lewd conduct activity, not gay men.

According to Ryan, however, LAPD vice officials told him they do not conduct undercover entrapment stings in the neighborhoods above the Sunset Strip or other "problem areas" where heterosexuals have been known to engage in similar lewd conduct activity.

Bratton's report also notes that Internet Web sites post information about "when and where to go in order to engage in lewd conduct. Very few of the men arrested live locally. Instead, they come from various parts of Southern California and other parts of the world." Later on in the report, Bratton says, "A local nightclub just north of the impacted neighborhood serves as a source of information for prospective patrons interested in engaging in lewd conduct. The majority of men arrested for lewd conduct by the Hollywood Vice Unit indicated they had heard about the area, including the alley from other patrons at the Gold Coast nightclub, located in adjacent West Hollywood."

Bratton's report indicates the LAPD intends to reach out to West Hollywood Sheriff's Station, local nightclub owners, and "is in the process of coordinating a meeting with leaders from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center to brainstorm additional community based solutions."

Roger Coggan, director of legal services at the Center, told IN that "nobody's contacted me or anybody else" at the Center. Coggan, who also regularly attends the chief's quarterly Gay and Lesbian Community Forums and recent meetings to promote recruitment, also expressed concern about the LAPD's sting operations. "We need to make sure that there is no backtracking on the progress we've made on the issue of lewd conduct and we need to start making real progress on the issue of the Boy Scouts," he said.

When asked about the vice entrapment stings, openly gay Officer Michael Joleceur, who has so diligently lead the LAPD's recruitment efforts in the LGBT community, said he didn't have enough information to make a comment.

What riles Prang, who also works as special assistant to Sheriff Lee Baca, is that he offered to share the experience West Hollywood has developed over the years with the issue of lewd conduct, using uniform officers and marked patrol cars to scare gay men away from committing the conduct, instead of arresting them. "The West Hollywood Sheriff's Station has employed a policy and practice of education, intervention, and prevention with the stated objective of stopping the behavior while de-emphasizing suppression through the jails and criminal justice system," Prang wrote to Freeman. "There are many enforcement strategies that may be considered in responding to lewd conduct reports, and in my view, undercover operations should not be considered until all other options have been exhausted."

West Hollywood Sheriff's Station Capt. David Long told IN that he was contacted by the Hollywood vice officer in charge of the sting who asked him to participate in the operation and a news conference at Parker Center. While he "sympathized" with the needs of the neighbors and the dilemma of controlling lewd conduct activity, Long told the LAPD vice officer, "I can't be a part of an operation that is so diametrically opposed to what we do in West Hollywood," though he offered to expand patrols in the area. "I don't know if they are as advanced as we are," Long told IN.

Freeman told IN in an e-mail exchange that she received Prang's letter late and was unable to reach him before the commission meeting. "We have since spoken and have agreed that following the holidays he and I and others will meet to discuss solutions," wrote Freeman. "The focus of the report submitted to the commission was around stopping the conduct, not through enforcement and arrest but other deterrents." The commission is in recess until Jan. 10. "Be assured that over the next couple of weeks, I will be following up, and that these meetings will take place," Freeman wrote.

Barry Greenfield, co-chair of the LAPD's Gay and Lesbian Community Forum, has also asked Assistant Chief Jim McDonnel to hold a meeting with the LGBT community over the issue. "I don't like this undercover tactic. Unless there is some way to back it up, to show that it's not entrapment, it will always have the taint of entrapment," Greenfield told IN. "But we in the gay community have some work to do, too. We have to take some responsibility for our community's behavior."

"We have two completely different types of policing," West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran, who also handles lewd conduct cases as part of his law practice, told IN. "In West Hollywood, we don't use undercover officers for lewd conduct or prostitution stings. I think we understand a little bit more about community based policing than the LAPD. On one side, we have an enlightened police force and on the other side we have the dark ages. And what Bratton's telling Shelly Freeman is just not true."

Bratton's approved report now goes to L.A. City Council's Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by City Councilmember Jack Weiss in whose district the lewd conduct and the sting operations have occurred.