Word: 77th
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Bratton's vision of justice is old-fashioned. Old Testament--style old-fashioned. At a press conference in the city's gang-ridden 77th division two days after the Rampart roll call, the chief told the story of Laudeina Salazar, 39, who was decorating her Christmas tree on Dec. 12 when a stray bullet "shot by some thug" passed through her front door and killed her. Bratton's message to gangsters with guns was simple: "You use a gun, we're going to put you in jail--in federal jail. You are going to be 1,000 miles from here...
Nowhere has the impact of the new policing regime been felt more strongly than in the city's 77th division, which straddles the 110 Freeway five miles south of downtown. In 2002 it was the most violent of all 18 police districts in Los Angeles, with 118 murders in its 12 sq. mi. Mirroring the L.A.P.D. as a whole, cops in the 77th had become demoralized and cynical following the 1991 Rodney King beating and the 1999 police-corruption scandal in the Rampart district. Many admit they had adopted a "drive and wave" style of policing, in which they rarely...
Reducing gang crime in the 77th was one of Bratton's priorities when he took command of the department 15 months ago. He instructed his commanders to get more patrol officers out on the street, make detectives work late nights and weekends, enlist the help of federal law-enforcement agencies like the FBI and the DEA, conduct more search-warrant and surveillance missions and generally get in the gangsters' faces more. Frequently, he would turn up at a late-night crime scene and observe how his officers handled investigations...
Statistically, the results are impressive. Homicides in the 77th dropped 45%, to just 65, last year. But the precinct's experience also provides a case study of the effect that Bratton's more concerted policing can have on a neighborhood suffering from high crime rates. TIME went on night patrols with officers of the 77th at regular intervals over the past 12 months, and it was clear the cops were becoming a lot more aggressive, routinely frisking suspected gangsters on the street on the basis of little more than how they were dressed. But the positive effects are rippling through...
Perhaps most impressive, however, is the fact that Fried was selected in the third round of the 2000 NHL Draft (77th overall) by the Florida Panthers...