Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck in front of a poster seeking information on Dodger Stadium beating suspects, May 17, 2011
Los Angeles’ chief of police is less than gung-ho about a controversial immigration enforcement program known as Secure Communities, a federal fingerprint-sharing program that has drawn complaints from some law enforcement and state officials, while it is embraced by others.
During a radio interview yesterday with KPCC’s Patt Morrison, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Chief Charlie Beck expressed some of the same concerns that more vocal critics of the program have voiced, among them Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco. An excerpt from the Beck interview:
The thing that the San Francisco sheriff worries about, and that many people in Los Angeles worry about, is that it causes a huge divide between a large portion of our population. Because whether people agree with it or not, a large portion of L.A.’s population are immigrants, and many of them are undocumented.
So it tends to cause a divide there where there’s a lack of trust, a lack of reporting, a lack of cooperation with police. You know, I cannot prosecute crimes without witnesses…
Beck said that the federal program does not interfere with Los Angeles police’s Special Order 40, which bars officers from inquiring about the immigration status of those they detain. He went on to say that while the ability to find and deport violent criminals is a benefit to the federal program, it’s a detriment if it causes immigrants to lose trust in police, and that more transparency is needed.
Audio of the entire interview can be heard here.
