Office of Operations

NOTE: The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) featured in the Major Crimes Universe is fictional but it's loosely based on the organization of the real LAPD from 2005, the year The Closer premiered. This article about the Office of Operations is fiction, as the way it's depicted in the Major Crimes Universe differs from its real world counterpart.

File:OO-Logo.png

Logo of the Office of Operations

The Office of Operations (OO) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has functional control of all field law enforcement, special operations, and detective operations throughout the city, overseeing the four geographical bureaus of the department as well as some specialized bureaus and divisions.

The bureaus overseen by the Office of Operations are the Central Bureau, West Bureau, Valley Bureau, South Bureau, Detective Bureau, and the Special Operations Bureau.

The specialized divisions that are overseen by the Office of Operations are the Major Crimes Division, Criminal Intelligence Division, COMPSTAT Division, Real-Time Analysis and Critical Response Division, Jail Division, and the Security Services Division.

Personnel of the Office of Operations

Director / Assistant Chief

The Director of Operations holds the rank of Assistant Chief and heads the Office of Operations.

Duties

The Director of Operations is responsible for managing and coordinating all matters related to field law enforcement and detective operations throughout the city.

In the Major Crimes Universe, the Director of Operations is also considered the First Assistant Chief, standing in for the Chief of Police when necessary. The Director of Operations is most likely chosen to be in that position because he already oversees most of the department's personnel and therefore is the most qualified to lead the department during the Chief's short absences.

Deputy Director / Deputy Chief

The Deputy Director of Operations holds the rank of Deputy Chief and assists the Director with management and coordination of the office. During the Director's short absences, the Deputy Director heads the Office of Operations.

Winnie Davis
Deputy Chief
Deputy Director, Office of Operations
^{(Major Crimes)}

Winnie Davis is an experienced officer who prefers the LAPD's community policing policies and patrol division operations in solving and preventing crime, rather than, in her opinion, overstaffing and overfunding specialized investigative divisions.

Duties

The Deputy Director is responsible for:

• Monitoring significant planned or spontaneous events, when appropriate or at the request of the Chief of Police or Director of Operations;
• Making recommendations to the Director of Operations regarding personnel deployment to ensure the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness;
• Evaluating practices and preparing reports regarding personnel deployment citywide;
• Auditing department wide operations, including field deployment and administrative procedures;
• Coordinating budget requests for the Office of Operations;
• Coordinating with Training Division, Office of Support Services, to ensure the completion of required training exercises for all organizational units assigned to the Office of Operations; and
• Conducting follow-up evaluations to ensure that standard procedures and policies are followed by all organizational units assigned to the Office of Operations.

History of the position of Deputy Director

It appears that the position of Deputy Director of Operations was created to replace the Operations Coordinator. The position of Operations Coordinator was abolished in 2012 when Russell Taylor was promoted to Assistant Chief of Operations for the beginning of Major Crimes.

It should also be noted that the position of Deputy Director is fictional and only exists in the Major Crimes Universe. The position is based heavily on the real position of Assistant to the Director – Office of Operations, although the Assistant to the Director is a Commander rather than a Deputy Chief.

Subordinate units of the Office of Operations

Geographical bureaus

Geographic operations bureaus are responsible for providing primary uniformed, traffic, and investigative activities within their jurisdictions.

Every geographical bureau consists of multiple geographical areas, commonly referred to as divisions, and a dedicated traffic division.

Organization of a geographical bureau and area:

• Deputy Chief, Commanding Officer – Geographical Bureau
• Commander, Assistant Commanding Officer – Geographical Bureau
• Captain III, Commanding Officer – Geographical Area
  • Captain I, Commanding Officer – Patrol Division:
    • The Patrol Division is responsible for providing uniformed law enforcement to their jurisdiction.
  • Lieutenant II, Commanding Officer – Detective Division:
    • The Detective Division is responsible for investigating felony and misdemeanor crimes which are not solved by an arrest by patrol or which do not fall under the jurisdiction of another specialized division.
  • Lieutenant II, Officer-in-Charge – Gang Impact Team (GIT):
    • The Gang Enforcement Detail (GED) is the GIT's primary uniformed component focusing on gang members and associated crimes.
    • The Narcotics Enforcement Detail (NED) shall address street sales, illegal use, and covert trafficking of narcotics.
    • The Investigation Detail is responsible for investigating gang-related crimes, with the exception of homicides and sex crimes. The Investigation Detail is staffed by detectives from the Area Detective Division.
    • The Gang Crime Analysis Detail (G-CAD) shall review all Area crime, arrest and follow-up reports that are completed for identified gang crimes, and review all crime, arrest and follow-up reports to determine gang involvement using the gang-related indicators.

Central Bureau

The Central Bureau is responsible for downtown Los Angeles and Eastern Los Angeles, and it's the most densely populated of the four patrol bureaus.

The Central Bureau is currently comprised of the Central Area, Rampart Area, Hollenbeck Area, Northeast Area, Newton Area, and the Central Traffic Division.

South Bureau

The South Bureau oversees South Los Angeles with the exception of Inglewood and Compton, which are both separate cities that maintain their own law enforcement agencies.

The South Bureau is currently comprised of the 77th Street Area, Southwest Area, Harbor Area, Southeast Area, and the South Traffic Division.

Valley Bureau

The Valley Bureau oversees operations within the San Fernando Valley.

The Valley Bureau is currently comprised of the Van Nuys Area, Mission Area, North Hollywood Area, Foothill Area, Devonshire Area, West Valley Area, Topanga Area, and the Valley Traffic Division.

West Bureau

The West Bureau's operations cover most of the well-known areas of Los Angeles, including Hollywood, Westwood, the Hollywood Hills area, the UCLA campus and Venice. This does not include Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, which are both separate cities that maintain their own law enforcement agencies.

The West Bureau is currently comprised of the Wilshire Area, Hollywood Area, West Los Angeles Area, Olympic Area, Pacific Area, LAX Field Services Division, and the West Traffic Division.

Specialized bureaus

Detective Bureau

The Detective Bureau provides functional leadership for detective operations citywide, including all specialized detective functions assigned to the Detective Bureau and the 21 geographic detective divisions throughout the city.

Special Operations Bureau

The Special Operations Bureau provides specialized tactical resources in support of daily field activities, unusual occurrences, and during serious disturbances and elevated threat conditions.

Specialized divisions

Major Crimes Division

The Major Crimes Division investigates homicides that involve multiple or high-profile victims and/or high-profile suspects; all cases involving missing, kidnapped or murdered LAPD officers; select major fraud investigations; select sexual assault investigations; and select kidnappings and missing person cases, including "critical missing" cases, which involve children who are under 14 years old and/or have mental illnesses or disabilities.

Criminal Intelligence Division

The Criminal Intelligence Division is responsible for gathering intelligence on criminal organizations, investigating organized crime, assisting other units in the investigation serious felonious crimes, and developing strategies for crime prevention as it relates to terrorism or other major crimes.

COMPSTAT Division

The COMPSTAT (computer statistics) Division reports directly to the Director of Operations and is responsible for analyzing, monitoring, and auditing the production and dissemination of all crime analysis information relating to crime series, patterns, hot spots, trends, clusters, spikes, and victim/offender information for the purpose of identifying, arresting, and prosecuting criminals.

Abolished positions

Operations Coordinator

The Operations Coordinator assisted the Director of Operations with coordinating between bureaus and divisions to ensure that all commands throughout the city are notified of any major events and that major investigations are shared across geographic boundaries if it is needed for investigative purposes.

The Operations Coordinator also provided supervision for the Department Command Post and the Labor Liaison Section.

The position of Operations Coordinator was most likely replaced by the Deputy Director of Operations after Russell Taylor was promoted to Assistant Chief of Operations in 2012, although in the real LAPD, the position was abolished long before that.

Russell Taylor
Commander
Operations Coordinator, Office of Operations
^{(The Closer, Seasons 4-7)}

Russell Taylor was transferred to be the Operations Coordinator from his previous assignment as the Commanding Officer of the Robbery-Homicide Division.

Office of Special Operations

In Season 7 of The Closer, when Tommy Delk was appointed as the Chief of Police, he planned on restructuring the department, including the creation of the Office of Special Operations. Delk had planned on Russell Taylor becoming its first Assistant Chief / Director of Special Operations.

Taylor in Delk's organizational chart.

The Office of Special Operations would have overseen the specialized field operations of the LAPD, including the Detective Bureau and the Special Operations Bureau. This creation would have also modified the Major Crimes Universe LAPD's organization to match the real LAPD of the time.

Before Tommy Delk could make these changes public, he died of a sudden brain aneurysm. After Assistant Chief of Operations Will Pope was appointed as the Interim Chief of Police (and later permanently to Chief of Police), he did not make any changes to the organization of the Major Crimes Universe LAPD.