By Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Earlier this month, the LAPD enacted a controversial plan to reassign 89 officers from regular patrol work to the detention facility, where they filled staffing shortages that had forced the department to keep the jail mothballed for nearly two years.
Unhappy with the idea of taking officers off city streets, City Councilman Greig Smith came up with the idea of lending the department nearly $640,000 from a city trust fund. The money, which is lent without interest and must be paid back over two years, allows the department to suspend cost-saving furloughs of the roughly 315 detention officers working in the jail. Having the detention officers back at full strength means 27 of the 89 officers can return to the field.
The struggle to open the Metropolitan Detention Center has been a long, troublesome one for the LAPD. Intended to replace a badly dilapidated, decades-old jail that fell short of safety and health regulations, the new $84-million structure required a larger staff to operate. When construction neared completion, however, the city was mired in a fiscal crisis and had imposed a strict hiring freeze and furloughs that left the LAPD unable to open the facility’s doors.
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