Roy Edmund Steckel (October 17, 1887 – November 14, 1950) was the

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...

Chief of Police Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

from December 30, 1929, to August 9, 1933. He succeeded and was succeeded as chief by James E. "Two-Guns" Davis. During Steckel's reign as Chief of Police, Los Angeles hosted the

1932 Summer Olympic Games The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

. The L.A.P.D. employed 800 duly sworn police officers. According to the L.A.P.D.'s official site, crime was very low during the Olympics, with there being only "two robberies, eight burglaries, 39 thefts, and 10 auto thefts". Steckel was dismissed as chief by the incoming mayor

Frank L. Shaw Frank L. Shaw (February 1, 1877 – January 24, 1958) was the first mayor of a major American city to be recalled from office, in 1938. He was also a member of the Los Angeles City Council and then the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. His ...

, who had run on a platform that included calling for Steckel's dismissal. Under Steckel's regime, Mayor

John Clinton Porter __NOTOC__ John Clinton Porter (April 4, 1871 – May 27, 1959) was a U.S. political figure. The ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote that he represented a "unique mixture of reform politics and xenophobic Protestant populism hattook him quite literall ...

appointed a former detective with the L.A.P.D. to head up an intelligence operation aimed at both the police department itself and city officials. L.A.P.D. intelligence operatives were bolstered with private investigators, who were given captain's badges. The L.A. City Council disbanded the intelligence operation after three years. The incident led ''

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'' to term the L.A.P.D. "super-snoopers".

Innovations

During Steckel's term as Police Chief, radio dispatching was first implemented. Called "the most modern municipal police radio system in the world", the radio network transmitted from a transmitter located in Elysian Park and utilized eight switchboards at City Hall. Forty-four patrol cars were equipped with radio communications, though two-way broadcasting did not come until 1938. The radio network reduced police response times to less than three minutes. Under Steckel, L.A.P.D.'s first "air patrol", consisting of ten police officers assigned to a fixed wing squadron, was implemented in 1931.

Controversies

During the first years of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, there was a movement in Los Angeles and California to deny Mexican immigrants

welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

benefits in a general drive to repatriate them to Mexico, ostensibly to alleviate

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...

. This led to California's Mexican Repatriation Program. In 1931, Chief Steckel claimed, "Most of our crime problems are caused by aliens without respect for the laws of the country."

References

External links

Los Angeles Police Department Communications Division History
* 1887 births 1950 deaths Chiefs of the Los Angeles Police Department {{US-law-enforcement-bio-stub