LAPD Ranks Swell

Los Angeles: The Los Angeles Police Department graduated a class of 37 new officers today at the Elysian Park Police Academy. The ceremony follows one day after Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton announced success in recruiting and hiring goals.

The city is on track to hire more police officers this fiscal year than any other year since the middle of the 1990s, when nearly 700 officers were hired. Last fiscal year, the goal was to hire 720 officers, but the actual number reached 603. With attrition, the net gain last fiscal year was 117 more officers, resulting an average sworn strength of 9,225 officers.

Recruiting efforts this fiscal year have put LAPD ahead of its projected hiring goal of 650 officers. By the end of June, the Department expects to hire 730 officers to end the fiscal year. Sworn strength rose this year above 9,500 for the first time since November 1999.

Hiring projections estimate the LAPD to reach a 10,000-officer high in the year 2009.

For the coming fiscal year, the LAPD is projecting to hire 780 new officers, to be trained in 13 academy classes of 60 officers. A new class will begin every four weeks.

A number of recruitment and testing dates have been scheduled at local community and California State college campuses. Dates and locations can be found at JoinLAPD.com.

Anyone interested in applying to be an LAPD officer can call 866-444-LAPD.