Central Area Community Police Station LAPD

If you, a loved one or a family member was arrested by or is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Central Area unit, operating out of the LAPD Central Area Community Police Station, it can cause a lot of anxiety.  Facing such a situation, it is common to need to know the bail amount (if any) associated with the offense (if an own recognizance (OR) release is denied), the evidence needed to convict one for the crime that allegedly took place, the defenses possible and the sentence a judge can impose if one is convicted of the crime. 

We at Greg Hill & Associates believe it is also valuable to know a few more things before interacting with any branch of law enforcement.  

It can be helpful to know the size of the police or sheriff’s department, the area’s demographics, the most common types of crime the department investigates and just a bit about the area’s history to make one’s communication with law enforcement more meaningful, more savvy and perhaps, more respectful.  This can lead to a better outcome than if one lacks such perspective.

This article is presented with this goal in mind.

The Central Community Station is staffed with 400 sworn and civilian members of LAPD.  This makes the LAPD, Central Area unit larger-than-average police department within Los Angeles County. 

They cover police operations for downtown Los Angeles.  The area has a population of 40,000 people (the daytime population is considerably higher with people traveling to this area for work) and covers 4.5 square miles, including Chinatown, Little Tokyo, South Park, Central City East, Historic Core, Financial District, Artists’ Lofts, Olvera Street, Jewelry District, the Convention Center and the Fashion District.

The Chinatown area is an area of about a square mile north of the 101 Freeway and generally east of the I-110 Harbor Freeway.  It is an area owned by Chinese residents and includes many restaurants as well as Bruce Lee’s martial arts studio.  It includes a residential neighborhood with a low-income, aging population of about 7,800 residents.

The median household income in 2010 dollars ($29,000), was the third lowest in Los Angeles County, preceded by Watts ($28,200) and Downtown ($24,300). The percentage of households earning $20,000 or less (53.6%) was the third largest in Los Angeles County, preceded by Downtown (57.4%) and University Park (56.6%).

Little Tokyo is an ethnically Japanese American district in downtown Los Angeles and the heart of the largest Japanese American population in North America. It is the largest and most populous of only three official Japantowns in the United States, all of which are in California (the other two are Japantown San Francisco and Japantown San Jose).

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 played a pivotal role in the first large wave of Japanese Immigration to the United States as the Japanese were heavily recruited to serve as 'cheap labor' in place of the then excluded Chinese Laborers.

Beginning in 1942, after the city's Japanese population was rounded up and "evacuated" to inland concentration camps, a large number of African Americans from the South moved to Los Angeles to find work in the labor-starved defense industry.  Its share in the Second Great Migration almost tripled Little Tokyo's pre-war population, with some 80,000 new arrivals taking up residence there.  For a brief time, the area became known as “Bronzeville” as African Americans and Latinos moved into the vacated properties and opened up nightclubs, restaurants, and other businesses.  Prohibited from buying and renting in most parts of the city by restrictive covenants, the area soon became severely overcrowded.

South Park is a 1.41 square mile area south of downtown Los Angeles.  The neighborhood's street boundaries are given as East Vernon Avenue on the north, Central Avenue on the east, Slauson Avenue on the south and the Harbor Freeway on the west.

The population of South Park was estimated at 32,851 in 2008.  The median age was 23. The percentages of residents aged birth to 34 were among the county's highest.  The $29,518 median household income in 2008 dollars was considered low for the city and county.  The percentage of households earning $20,000 or less was high, compared to the county at large.  The average household size of 3.9 people was high for the city.  Renters occupied 72.3% of the housing units, and homeowners occupied the rest.

The neighborhood's only recreation facility, South Park, at 345 East 51st Street, was established on a 20-acre plot purchased from "the Boetcher estate" in 1900, and after its planting with orange, oak and walnut trees, it was said to "compare favorably with any of the city's older beauty spots." It fronted on South Park Avenue, now Avalon Boulevard.  The water well and pump house developed at that time are still in existence.

The park features a baseball diamond (lighted), basketball courts (lighted/outdoor), children's play area, picnic tables, seasonal pool (outdoor/unheated) and tennis courts (lighted).