Since the outbreak of the Palisades fire, LAPD officers accustomed to chasing 911 calls and patrolling city streets have suddenly found themselves thrust into an unfamiliar yet pivotal role: part aid worker, part night sentry, part wingman for firefighters battling one of the most devastating blazes in the region’s history.
Across the country, police have for decades been pressed into crisis response duty during wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. Some experts predict law enforcement will increasingly be confronted with new climate-related challenges, which LAPD officers have been learning about firsthand over the last week.
The LAPD has been grappling with how and when to enforce evacuation orders, and how to do their regular work investigating crimes while short-staffed.
With around 750 officers deployed to the fire area, the crisis has strained a force already well below what leaders say are optimum staffing levels due to long-standing issues with turnover and recruitment.
Each of the LAPD’s 21 patrol divisions has been expected to send extra bodies — patrol officers, supervisors and detectives — to the fire front lines. As a result, most low-level calls such as burglaries or other incidents where a suspect has already fled are not receiving immediate attention.
LAPD officials have come under pressure to focus on opportunistic thieves suspected of using the chaos to burglarize the homes of people who fled the fires.
Earlier this week, prosecutors charged nine people with looting in areas devastated by the Palisades and Eaton fires, including a trio suspected of stealing $200,000 worth of valuables from a home in Mandeville Canyon. Separately, another man was accused of intentionally lighting a blaze in an Azusa park.
Officers in Pacific Palisades enforcing the evacuation zone perimeter have faced blistering criticism from frustrated residents who were eager to return to their homes. Local City Council offices and social media have been flooded with complaints about inaccurate information and inconsistent enforcement by police.
At one of the now-daily briefings by officials Tuesday, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the department was continuing to step up its patrols in the area to ward off would-be burglars. He also asked for patience and “continued cooperation” from people displaced by the fire.
“We understand the frustration and your desires to see your homes firsthand but until Cal Fire tells us the impacted areas are safe for repopulation, we can’t allow you to return,” McDonnell said.
The department has received reinforcements from the LAX and port police departments and about 200 National Guard troops, he said. Authorities arrested 14 people for various crimes, including curfew violations, impersonating a firefighter, DUI and burglary, the chief said. Police also investigated 34 missing persons reports: 20 of the individuals were found alive, while several others were among the casualties of the Palisades fire.
Firefighters had contained about 19% of the blaze, which has burned 23,713 acres and destroyed nearly 1,300 structures. Officials have confirmed that at least nine people are dead from the fire.
LAPD officers were among those affected. According to a department-wide memo circulated last week, 19 officers’ homes were destroyed and an additional 11 sustained fire damage.
The department is a part of a just-announced state and federal task force to combat wildfire-related crimes, including home break-ins, arson and flying drones over restricted airspace. Such initiatives and disaster-related policing activities are likely to become more routine, according to new findings from researchers who study the effects of climate change.
Since Hurricane Katrina, when the city of New Orleans was forced to pay out millions of dollars in settlements after several officers were convicted for their roles in the killings of unarmed civilians in the chaotic days after the storm, U.S. police agencies have begun more proactive training for disaster scenarios, experts said.
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said law enforcement agencies across the country are taking notice of the LAPD’s performance in recent days.
“Whether you believe it’s climate change or not, Los Angeles will be a wake-up call for everybody,” he said.
In a 2023 paper published in the journal Policing, a pair of researchers from the Netherlands concluded that rising global temperatures and extreme weather have already dramatically impacted policing and will continue to do so, likely in unexpected ways.
One of the authors, Anna Matczak, a criminologist and senior lecturer at the Hague University of Applied Sciences, said more climate events “will significantly impact and change the crime and harm landscape on every possible level,” which could mean everything from higher rates of domestic violence to thefts of valuable resources and disaster supplies.
“You have ordinary crimes but also suddenly on top of that you have crimes that you call survival crimes because people are deprived of basic needs,” Matczak said.
Some police departments across the world have started developing climate specific strategies, analyzing weather data to try to predict where and when crime hot spots will emerge, according to associate professor Sylvia Bergh, the paper’s other author.
LAPD Deputy Police Chief Donald “Donnie” Graham said that even if some critics don’t want to admit it, police already have a vital role in the city’s response to disasters.
“It’s police officers who are out there preventing the illegal entry to the areas to keep people from getting preyed upon in their darkest hours,” he said as he drove to the city’s emergency response center.
He defended how officers have operated during the recent fires, noting that false alarms about evacuations and other conflicting information circulating online have made everyone’s jobs harder.
“Chaos is chaos,” Graham said.
One Santa Monica resident whose home was burglarized early Wednesday hoped that the presence of an Apple AirTag amid her pilfered items could help investigators track down their whereabouts. But authorities have told the woman, an attorney whose name is Vicki, that they “just don’t have enough resources.”
The woman, who asked that her last name not be disclosed over safety concerns, said that her family’s home fell just outside the mandatory evacuation zone that was established in Santa Monica on Tuesday as the Palisades fire blazed southward. She and her family decided to leave, departing the property in two cars and heading for safer environs. By 11 p.m. or so, the house was empty.
Around 2:30 a.m., a man broke into the property, said Vicki, who shared surveillance video of the episode with The Times. In it, the burglar, who wore a dark hoodie and backpack, appears to kick in the wooden front door before making off with valuable items, including designer shoes and a collection of Taiwanese whiskey.
“They tossed our house — completely,” she said.
When the burglar left the house after 3 a.m., he made off with a duffel bag that had an Apple AirTag in it. Vicki said she and her husband got in touch with the Santa Monica Police Department and then the LAPD, which began investigating the matter once it was clear the AirTag was pinging in the city of Los Angeles.
The LAPD traced the AirTag to an apartment building in Central L.A., Vicki said, but “couldn’t pinpoint” its location and didn’t enter the premises. Later, the AirTag moved to another property nearby, where it remained for several days.
Vicki said when she followed up with police in Santa Monica, she was told that the department didn’t have enough resources to pursue it, owing to the fire. She knows the fire is everyone’s primary concern, but she’s worried time is running out to solve the crime.
“If you could find them, you could solve a burglary,” she said.
An LAPD spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
Santa Monica police spokesperson Lt. Erika Aklufi said in a statement that, “under ordinary circumstances,” detectives work to track down stolen property located by owners with AirTags and other devices, but those leads can’t always pinpoint a location or be sufficient evidence to make an arrest.
“We are still heavily involved in a highly extraordinary emergency during which time nothing has been status quo,” Aklufi said in a statement, noting that “every officer, including those assigned to investigations, was required to set aside their normal duties to staff operations in the Santa Monica evacuation zones.”
Dealing with the fires remains top priority, the statement said, but Vicki’s AirTag case remains open.
“This investigation is not over,” the Santa Monica police said. “And as we move forward and closer to normalcy, our investigations division will continue to work with LAPD on appropriate follow-up as time and resources allow.”
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
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