The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With 9,925 officers and 2,879 civilian staff, covering an area of 498 square miles (1,290 km2) with a population of 3,792,621 million people as of the 2010 Census, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.
The LAPD has been copiously fictionalized in numerous movies, novels and television shows throughout its history. The department has also been associated with a number of controversies, mainly concerned with racial animosity, police brutality and police corruption.
Read more about Los Angeles Police Department: History, Organization, Rank Structure and Insignia, Chiefs of Police, Work Environment, LAPD Awards, Commendations, Citations and Medals, Fallen Officers, In Popular Culture
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“Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang’s feeble imagination.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Of Eva first, that for hir wikkednesse
Was al mankinde brought to wrecchednesse,
For which that Jesu Crist himself was slain
That boughte us with his herte blood again—
Lo, heer expres of wommen may ye finde
That womman was the los of al mankinde.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Prejudices are useless. Call Los Angeles any dirty name you like—Six Suburbs in Search of a City, Paradise with a Lobotomy, anything—but the fact remains that you are already living in it before you get there.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“The State has but one face for me: that of the police. To my eyes, all of the State’s ministries have this single face, and I cannot imagine the ministry of culture other than as the police of culture, with its prefect and commissioners.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
““Which is more important to you, your field or your children?” the department head asked. She replied, “That’s like asking me if I could walk better if you amputated my right leg or my left leg.””
—Anonymous Parent. As quoted in Women and the Work Family Dilemma, by Deborah J. Swiss and Judith P. Walker, ch. 2 (1993)