In 1979, I was the police officer who actually drafted “Special Order 40.” I did so under protest, but was ordered to actually draft the order and prepare it for the signature of Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates.
The order is now incorporated into the LAPD Manual in Volume 1, Section 390. This order was the direct result of the chief of police being ordered to publish it by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. The president of the Board of Police Commissioners in 1979 was none other than now-9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhart. Reinhart was, and I suppose still is, the spouse of Ramona Ripstan, the head of the Southern California Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union!
The order states in part: “Undocumented status in itself is not a matter for police action. It is therefore incumbent upon all employees to make the personal commitment to equal enforcement of the law and service to the public regardless of alien status.”
This was clearly “code” for back off! At the time, the LAPD knew that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Border Patrol were not doing their job in Los Angeles. The street officers of the LAPD intuitively knew that if they didn’t do something, the floodgates would be wide open. Well, we were told to stop enforcing immigration law, the gates were opened and the rest is history.
Sorry, folks … we tried.
J.T. Day,
LAPD, retired
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