Governor Joins Federal, State and Local Officials to Announce Results of Los Angeles Parole Sweep

SECRETARY CATE:

Good morning, everyone. My name is Matt Cate, I'm the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. At 4 o'clock this morning, Department of Corrections employees and our Division of Parole, along with our partners in law enforcement, went out and targeted approximately 300 parolees with existing or prior felony convictions for weapons possession.

In this Operation Disarm, we partnered with the U.S. Marshal Service, ATF, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, the Los Angeles Police Department, the L.A. County D.A.'s Office, Los Angeles County Probation, L.A. County Children and Family Services, the Bell Gardens Police Department, Inglewood Police, Whittier Police, Hawthorne Police, El Monte Police, Glendale Police, Huntington Police, Downey Police and Pasadena Police Departments. Without the help of these partners and the cooperative effort with Corrections and our Division of Parole, this could not have been possible.

It is my pleasure now to begin by introducing our governor. When I met the governor and became the Secretary of Corrections he made it very clear that his number one commitment was public safety. And he's lived up to that every day, providing us with the resources to do these kinds of sweeps, with a commitment to make California a safer place. And so it is my profound pleasure to introduce the Governor of the State of California and my boss, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause) Well, thank you very much, Matt, for the nice introduction and also for the great work. We have just completed the largest parole sweep I think in the history of Los Angeles and the state of California. (Applause)

And like the secretary has already said, that the Parole Division of the CDCR showed tremendous leadership here today and did extraordinary work, working together with nearly 1,000 officers from 17 different agencies and coordinating this sweep was really extraordinary.

So I want to just say thank you to so many people here today. First of all, to all the officers that are out there that are risking their lives every day. Let's give them a big hand for the great, great work that they have done. (Applause)

I want to thank also Secretary Matt Cate for the extraordinary leadership and Mayor Villaraigosa for helping us coordinate this whole thing and Sheriff Lee Baca and Police Chief Beck and Robert Ambroselli, the Director of Adult Parole Operations. And Special Agent in Charge John Torres, we want to thank him also and Tom Sawyer, the safety liaison for our Governor's Office and Thomas Hession, the chief inspector of the U.S. Marshals Service and the list goes on and on. I mean, look at the extraordinary men and women that are standing behind us and behind the cameras, all there. They have done extraordinary work so I want to thank all of them; because of that it was possible to do that sweep.

And like Secretary Cate said, that at 5:30 this morning already they started knocking on doors and this was kind of a rude awakening for a lot of those parole violators. And of course they targeted 300 high-profile parole violators here this morning.

And let me just give you some of the numbers: They arrested 77 so far. And may I remind you, this was not unusual to have a sweep like that, it's just to have it to that level and that big. But we have had those since January, those sweeps, throughout the state of California and they have been very, very successful. There were a lot of weapons that were seized also and that was also terrific and drugs and all kinds of other things that I think our law enforcement officials will get into in more detail after that.

But I just want to tell you that I'm really excited about that, because this is what our parole reform is all about. When I came into office I made it clear that I will do everything that I can to provide the public safety -- public safety is our number one priority -- and that meant reforming our parole system to make it more effective and more efficient and to keep Californians safe.

And in January, we did exactly that. We hired more agents, we reduced caseloads and focused our efforts on the most dangerous offenders because, as you know, in the past for every parole agent there were 70 or so parolees that they were in charge of. Now it is reduced down to 48 and I think that really made it much more efficient, the whole system and much more effective.

And so today's action is proof of those reforms, that they are working. And the coordination and the partnership that we saw here today was really phenomenal. We had a command center, we had four staging centers throughout Los Angeles that kept officers highly organized and also safe. And the ATF provided the crime analysis, which was critical to making the sweep a success. And we worked closely with our partners including, like I said, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff's office and we have their leaders here today.

The state of California, I want you to know, has 108,000 parolees and one-third of them live right here in Los Angeles and this is why it is so important to do those sweeps and to stay on top of it. And we want to let them know that we, because of this parole reform, we can watch very closely what each and every one of them does and if they break the law we are going to go after them. It's that simple.

And I also wanted to let you know that, even though we have a budget problem and we have a $20 billion deficit but when it comes to public safety -- if it is fires, if it's earthquakes, if it is other disasters or if it just keeping the public safe with those kind of measures -- we will not spare one dollar. We will just go all out and use all of the resources available in order to keep the people safe. That's the important thing.

So thank you very much, all of you, for being here today. Again, thank you to all the officers for the great work that they have done. And now I would like to bring our my friend Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to say a few words. Thank you. (Applause)

MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA:

I want to thank you, Governor Schwarzenegger. You and I do a lot of press conferences together and there's a partnership between the city and the state that goes well beyond just public safety. But in the area of public safety, let me tell you, we have had a great run. And I want to thank you for your leadership, for making public safety your priority, for putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to investing in public safety. Let's give the Governor a big hand. (Applause)

But the real hand belongs to all of you, the folks with the California Department of Corrections -- and I had an opportunity to acknowledge them. (Applause) The Division of Adult Parole operations, thank you. Thanks also to the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. Thank you as well, (Applause) the men and women of the L.A. Sheriff's Department, (Applause) the folks at ATF, the U.S. Marshals Service.

You know, one of the things the Governor and I pride ourselves in is the way we work together. We get rid of the R and the D by our names and we work together seamlessly. And you know what? Our police departments, our law enforcement partners, do the same thing, whether they're our law enforcement partners at the state level, at the county and municipal level, at the federal level. The reason why crime in L.A. is down nine years running is because we all work together, we coordinate and collaborate, we've got community support.

We're taking people with guns off the street -- that's what Operation Disarm is all about -- people who are parolees who don't understand that if you're going to be paroled you've got to abide by the law, you've got to abide by the conditions of your parole. If you walk around with a gun that is a violation of those conditions and we're going to put you away. And today we have and thanks to all of you for doing that.

I'll tell you, yesterday we had an opportunity to work with our federal and local partners, many of the same people who are here today and we put away a notorious gang that had terrorized the Pueblo Del Rio community. What we're making absolutely clear is this; that we will not tolerate the kinds of violence that we've seen. Crime is down nine years in a row but we want to keep on driving that crime, because people deserve to live in their communities and their neighborhoods free from gun and gang violence, free from the kind of terror that we see is committed by some of these people.

So again, particularly to all of you with the Department of Corrections, LAPD, Sheriff's Department, Marshals, ATF, thank you so much for keeping L.A. and California safer. (Applause)

And as I said, I've worked with the sheriff now since -- actually, I co-chaired his campaign for sheriff back in the early '90s -- but I've worked with this sheriff for a long time. We worked together to get a crime lab in the city of Los Angeles that's second to none in terms of state of the art.

Our police department and our sheriff deputies work seamlessly together. In fact, just two days ago one of your deputies stopped someone from killing someone in the city of Los Angeles, I saw on my BlackBerry. We work so well together.

Please help me in welcoming one of our partners that played a big role in this effort, Sheriff Lee Baca. (Applause)

SHERIFF BACA:

You know, the Governor and the Mayor have said it all, quite frankly and I'd just like to reinforce the leadership element that the Governor and the Mayor have spoken to. The Department of Corrections, as you know, has had great challenges; Los Angeles County basically feeds in 30 percent of the people that go to state prison in California. And we've been blessed to have a governor that has been on the point with reform since he began. And I think our mayor is on record as being one of the strongest, if not the strongest mayor in America regarding public safety and I thank you very much for that, Mayor.

I also want to introduce Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is the supervisor of the Second District that we're in, who has also been a real strong crime fighter. But he also, like me, is looking to prevent crime at the same time. Let me say about this -- part of this effort today is to put people back in prison that are not following the rules, as the mayor and governor have said. But at the same time we have an extensive program to help those that want to go the right way. And we've been reaching out to those parolees right from the point when they get released from prison. They're indoctrinated into possible programs that they would be benefitting from and the desire, of course, is to keep them on the right track.

But today was an enforcement day and as a result -- the Sheriff's Department has been doing this, quite frankly, for the past six months and we've contacted 6,669 parolees and let them know that if you want to do it the right way, here's the way to do it. If you want to do it the wrong way we know who you are, we know we can find you, we know we're going to arrest you for the things that you do wrong.

At the same time we have arrested well over 1,400 parolees throughout the first six months of this year. And that lets them know that the taskforce is going to happen but in between taskforce efforts there's vigilance on the part of every police department and our federal partners with us and our state Department of Corrections is with us as well. We are working in between the taskforce periods diligently to know where every parolee lives in Los Angeles County, that we have an obligation, using computerized forms of information, to have every police officer know in his beat who the parolees are in that particular police beat. That's our ultimate goal. And therefore we'll be able to roll out the effectiveness of the vision of our mayor and our governor and our supervisors in the county of Los Angeles.

So the news is good but we have a lot more work to do. And I thank all of you here, as the governor and mayor have. Once again those in uniform, those that have that job of being on the line, you couldn't find a more grateful group than those of us that are here privileged to serve with you in this very, very important task.

My friend Charlie Beck and I are brothers. He's married to a deputy sheriff, so you know that works well. (Laughter) And I'd like to introduce him to you. Charlie Beck. Thank you. (Applause)

CHIEF BECK:

Well, since the sheriff brought it up -- but it turns out that if you mix blue and green, what do you get? Blue. (Laughter) Because my son was working this operation today and he was wearing blue.

I just want to first thank our governor, my mayor, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas for their absolute dedication to public safety. In these tough budget times there are a lot of competing interests and these three men have stood solid behind law enforcement, behind public safety, behind making communities better, behind changing communities so that they can succeed on many, many levels. And that's what today was about.

And then I want to thank my partners. You know, I have a true mentor and partner in Sheriff Baca; I learn from him every day. A great man, great leader, leads a great department who I am extremely proud to work with.

And then the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. We had over 300 L.A. cops working this operation today and they performed in a stellar manner. No drama, no use of force, just good, quality police work that's going to make a difference in this community, so I want to thank them.

Then I want to introduce a great partner of mine who is going to speak next, somebody that works in a huge federal system but at a local level. And I'll tell you, there is nothing more powerful than that. John Torres, the special agent in charge, ATF, works hand-in-glove with me and the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, the L.A. County Sheriffs and many other of our allied agencies in L.A. County and I want to thank John for his participation not only in this but in everything I do every day. So John, you're talking next. (Applause)

MR. TORRES:

Thanks, Chief, for the kind words. Like everybody pretty much said, it's all about partnerships, it's about collaboration, it's about bringing everything together. The job for us is not done, for any of us. Our next step is to take those 15 firearms, trace them, see how these violent parolees got those guns, work with our partners again to get to the source. So it's not done.

I think the biggest thing today is quality of life. I can't tell you how many drive-by shootings we have prevented or assaults we have prevented with these guns today. What I can tell you with certainly is that we have improved the quality of life for our citizens, the citizens of Los Angeles. And if this happens again tomorrow, if we have another parole sweep, we'll be right there shoulder-to-shoulder with the city of L.A., Department of Corrections and the state of California.

So that being said, I want to introduce the leader of this operation, the director of the California Department of Corrections, Robert Ambroselli. (Applause)

DIRECTOR AMBROSELLI:

Good afternoon, I'm Robert Ambroselli, I'm the director for the Division of Adult Parole Operations. It is a proud day for Parole. I would like to recognize our staff, who worked very hard to collect local intelligence and to prepare for this operation for over a month. This includes the Division of Community Safety, the Transportation Department for the CDCR that helped book these parolees into prison so that the local jails weren't overcrowded. Your efforts today have made the community safer not just by removing violent offenders off the street but you've done it without injury to our staff and complaints from our community.

I would also like to formally thank you law enforcement partners. You assisted us with your personnel, you coordinated the location of this command center and others. And the spirit of partnership and commitment to community protection -- we would not be successful without you and without the city of Los Angeles.

Thanks to the passage of recent parole reform in California and backed by our governor, caseloads have been reduced. Today the Parole Division in this operation sends a message to the communities throughout the state, a message that states we are dedicated to public safety and focused on the offenders most likely to commit serious and violent offenses.

We rescued children today. We took firearms off the streets. We took drugs into custody and we've taken people into custody that shouldn't have been out there. We couldn't have done it without our agents, without the staff behind us and without the protection of both the Sheriff's Department, the Police Department and all the municipalities that have been involved, to include prosecutors and a host of other people that are back home supporting our agents and our staff in maintaining the streets safe so that we can go out and do this.

Thank you very much. Thank you to my partners and thank you to the Governor. (Applause)

SECRETARY CATE:

Thank you, Director Ambroselli. The Governor and I and the others up here would take any questions from the press at this time.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS:

QUESTION: Can you actually explain what happened (Inaudible)

SECRETARY CATE: Sure. Well, I know that from -- come on up, Robert -- from talking to our staff, we had staff here at 1:00 in the morning to start preparing the command center. And then between 4 a.m. and 5:30 we had about 900 to 1,000 officers from parole agents, LAPD, the Sheriff's Department, all rolled out to homes and apartments and living quarters of parolees with prior convictions for weapon offenses in particular. So those were the targeted parolees.

We hit those homes in a coordinated effort and then the results started rolling in and we're still getting those results now. These are, obviously, some of the weapons that were found and ammunition and knives and so forth. All sorts of drugs were found. And so the 80 parolees plus who were in possession of these illegal firearms and drugs were arrested and taken off the streets. So that's the sum of it, what we've accomplished so far this morning. And our technicians are still gathering data from the field even now.

All right? Other questions?

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

SECRETARY CATE: Well, this is not our first sweep. When were we in the Alameda-Oakland areas?

DIRECTOR AMBROSELLI: Three weeks ago.

SECRETARY CATE: So three weeks ago in the Alameda-Oakland area.

DIRECTOR AMBROSELLI: And Fresno two weeks before that.

SECRETARY CATE: Fresno two weeks before that. We just want to make sure that in every area where we have numbers of parolees the message gets out that our partners in law enforcement and Corrections, the state and the Governor, are going to not only be vigilant day to day, as Sheriff Baca mentioned but we're going to take on these issues on broad sweeps just to send the alert that you never know when we're going to arrive at your door. And so today was the day in the L.A. region.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

SECRETARY CATE: So far. So, 15 so far. And remember, that doesn't include any of the other weapons. Fifty firearms? So the number goes from 12 to 15 to 50 as we start to get the information in.

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Source