American Police Beat: January 2018 23 Police officer and former Gulf War Tank Commander Spike Yarrow speaks with tank driver Chris Fielder, a technician from The Tank Museum, in Bovington, Dorset, with a replica WW1 Mk IV tank used in the film Warhorse, at The Cenotaph, Whitehall in London. (Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images) I n La La Land, LAPD Chief Char- lie Beck is telling one of his captains to put up or shut up af- ter she publicly charged Beck with downplaying crime numbers. Capt. Lillian Carran- za recently filed a claim against the city alleging that department com- mand staffers have been willfully under-reporting crime statistics for years. Carranza says she’s got the goods in writing but she can’t produce them because they are secret LAPD documents. Chief Beck is obviously defending himself and the people he has working on crime data. “These claims are a slap in the face to the many detectives and command officers who work so hard with a very difficult sys- tem to get crime statistics as close to accurate as we possibly can,” Beck said at a news conference in front of LAPD’s Operations Valley Bureau. Beck pointed out that there are 15 detectives assigned to do audits of the statistics to “make sure we do the right thing.” In addition, Beck says this isn’t the first time that officers have questioned the department’s numbers. The chief indicated that both the LAPD and the Office of Inspector Gen- eral, which works for the civilian Police Commis- sion that oversees the department, have looked into similar claims over the last several years and found no wrongdoing. Interestingly, Carranza says she knows the agency is underreporting crime because she went to sever- al LAPD stations and did her own audits. She says her audits back up her claims but she’s not sharing that informa- tion either, according to an article from the L.A. Daily News. Charges of book cooking Ambitious capt. alleges chief is hiding something The Hopkinton Police Department (MA) post- ed a photo on Facebook showing a homemade license plate. From the agency Facebook page: “Here’s a little advice to those aspiring to make their own license plates…1. Don’t. 2. But if you do, make sure not to use cardboard from a pizza box and magic markers,” the post read. ★ We’ve Got Your Back. Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver thanks each and every one of you for your commitment to keeping us safe and your dedication to service. Be careful out there. Representing over 350 associations Trusted by more than 25,000 public employees in California Collective Bargaining, Internal Affairs, Criminal Defense, Critical Incidents, Personal Injury, and Civil Litigation Serving all of California 24/7 | 866.964.4513 | www.RLSlawyers.com