Richard Odenthal, interview, 1992-06-24

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Content LAW OFFICES
BIRD, MARELLA, BOXER, WOLPERT & MATZ
TERRY W. BIRD
JOEL E. BOXER
MARKT. DROOKS
THOMAS R. FREEMAN
JEROME H. FRIEDBERG
DENISE D. GORGES
SHARON E. JONES
JASON D. KOGAN
VINCENTJ. MARELLA
A. HOWARD MATZ
RONALD J. NESSIM
JOHN K. RUBINER
DIANE P. SHAKIN
DARON L. TOOCH
DOROTHY WOLPERT
A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION
Fi le:
Re:
WEBSTER STUDY/Interagency Group
Summary/OES Interview
PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
Date:
To:
From:
1875 CENTURY PARK EAST
23rd FLOOR
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
90067
TELEPHONE (310) 201-2100
FAX (310) 201-2110
June 29, 1992
Richard J. Stone
Vincent J. Marella
SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW OF LT. RICHARD ODENTHAL
Lt. Richard Odenthal was interviewed on June 24, 1992 at
1:00 p.m. by Vincent J. Marella. The topics covered in the
interview include the structure and functioning of the Los Angeles
Police Department's Emergency Operations Center.
The attached memorandum of interview is a summary of my
recollection of the meeting, including my questions and comments,
together with my mental impressions, conclusions and opinions.
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To:
From:
Date:
Re:
OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISOR
TO THE BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSIONERS
CITY OF LOS ANGELES
MEMORANDUM
PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
Richard J. Stone
Office of the Special Advisor
Vincent J. Marella
June 26, 1992
Interview of Lt. Richard Odenthal,
Los Angeles Sheriff's Office
ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
On Wednesday, June 24, 1992 at 1:00 p.m., I interviewed
Lt. Richard Odenthal of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office ("LASO")
at the LASO's Emergency Operations Center ("EOC") east of downtown
Los Angeles. The following is a summary of my recollection of this
meeting, including my questions and comments, together with my
mental impressions, conclusions and opinions based upon the
meeting.
This interview was a follow-up interview to the one
conducted on June 2, 1992, at which time Lt. Odenthal, along with
other officials of the LASO were interviewed by representatives of
the Webster Study. The purpose of this interview was to follow up
on particular points centering primarily on the operation of the
LASO's EOC and to identify additional personnel in the LASO and the
LAPD to be interviewed.
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1. Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's EOC
Lt. Odenthal and I discussed at some length the function and
operation of the LASO' s EOC. Lt. Odenthal explained that the
LASO's EOC uses the Incident Command System ("ICS") format for its
organization. A copy of the ICS organizational plan is attached
hereto as Exhibit A. Lt. Odenthal explained that the EOC is the
central point of contact for all operations in the Sheriff's
Department as well as for other county agencies. All of the other
county agencies have representatives assigned to the LASO's EOC in
an emergency. Thus, representatives from the eight major
departments of the county are stationed in LASO's EOC (Fire Dept.,
Health Dept., etc.).
LASO attempts, by means of its EOC, to keep up on everything
that is going on throughout the county during an emergency.
Priorities are established in the EOC. For instance, all requests
for law enforcement mutual assistance directed to the Sheriff's
Department are handled through the EOC. The officer in charge of
the EOC will generally clear decisions regarding mutual assistance
through the incident commander. Odenthal stated that, while the
Sheriff's EOC is a central clearing house for information and for
priorities, specific tactical assignments are not made directly
from the EOC. Instead, these are made by field commanders. In
this sense, the Sheriff's EOC operates in a similar manner as does
the LAPD's EOC, in that after a platoon is dispatched by the EOC,
the platoon leader gets his mission from and coordinates with the
field operations chief. At that point, the EOC is out of the
picture with respect to that platoon which has been assigned.
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2. Operation of the LASO's EOC During the civil Disturbances
Lt. Odenthal stated that there are two core EOC teams within
LASO. Odenthal is the officer of the "A" EOC team which, during
the civil disturbance, staffed the EOC during the night shift. The
"B" EOC team staffed the EOC during the day shift. [A copy of the
EOC staff personnel roster is attached hereto as Exhibit B.]
Lt. Odenthal stated that the LASO's EOC became operational at
approximately 6: 30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29, 1992. He explained
that all EOC team members carry pagers on a 24-hour basis. On
Wednesday evening, in the early hours of the civil disturbance,
Odenthal decided to call the EOC teams in and the pagers were
activated by approximately 6:30 p.m. By 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday,
April 29, the LASO's EOC was staffed with LASO personnel and was
fully operational.
I questioned Odenthal on how long it should take to mobilize
an emergency operations center to the point where it becomes
effective during a civil disturbance like the one experienced in
April in Los Angeles. He said that based upon his experience in
major earthquakes, riots and fires, it takes approximately four
hours to staff an emergency operations center and get it to the
point where it can effectively react to a major disturbance. He
added that in the case of the recent civil disturbance, this rule
of thumb was borne out in that, while the LASO's EOC was staffed in
well under four hours, it took at least that long for the EOC to
catch up and deal with the events that were occurring throughout
the county. He also explained that there is a direct telephone
line from the LASO' s EOC to the LAPD' s EOC, which is used to
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facilitate communications to LAPD during a crisis. He stated that
during a major disturbance like the one that occurred in April,
LASO has a member of its staff stationed in the LAPD which does the
same to facilitate effective communication.
3. Assessment Of The Functioning Of LAPD's EOC During The Civil
Disturbance
We talked at some length about whether the LAPD's EOC operated
effectively during the course of the April civil disturbances.
According to Odenthal, the LAPD's EOC did not function effectively.
He added that in his view, this was a key issue in the overall
response by the LAPD to the civil disturbances. According to
Odenthal, the LAPD's EOC never really became functional for about
three to four days after the riots began. Thus, for the critical
early period of the riots, specifically, Wednesday evening,
Thursday and Friday, April 29, 30 and May 1, respectively, the
LAPD' s EOC did not function effectively. When I pressed Lt.
Odenthal for specifics relating to this issue, he reiterated the
points that were made in the earlier interview to the effect that
LAPD routinely made requests directly to other police departments
and to law enforcement agencies within and outside the county for
assistance during the riots, and he pointed out that in many
instances this was done without the knowledge of the LAPD's EOC.
He specifically pointed to the instance which he had related in our
earlier interview wherein he received information from Fritz
Paterson of OES on Wednesday evening, April 29, that the LAPD had
requested the National Guard. He said that when he tried to
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confirm this with the LAPD's EOC, he was told that they knew
nothing about such a request. It was clear that such a request had
been made from one of the LAPD's four Bureaus without the knowledge
of the EOC. In addition to the points he made in the earlier
interview, he added the following two incidents to demonstrate that
LAPD's EOC was not functioning effectively during the riots:
Odenthal stated that at one point on either Thursday or Friday
night during the riots, the LAPD's EOC was "screaming" for two
platoons for Sheriff's deputies to be deployed to the City. He
said that the situation got so tense that Commander Squires of the
Sheriff's Department went to the LAPD Command Center and talked to
the LAPD Commander who supposedly needed the Sheriff's deputies.
However, the LAPD Commander told Squires that he did not want
additional people. In order to get this point across to the LAPD's
EOC, a conference call was placed in which a representative from
the Sheriff's office, the LAPD Commander and Operations
Headquarters Deputy Chief Ron Frankle participated. During the
course of that conversation the LAPD Commander told Frankle that he
did not need the Sheriff's deputies. It was only at this point,
and after this effort on the part of LASO, that the LAPD's EOC was
convinced that the additional resources were not in fact necessary.
A second incident occurred on either Thursday or Friday during
the riots, in which the LAPD liaison told the Sheriff's Department
that the LAPD needed 1,000 men. Odenthal responded to the LAPD's
request by pointing out that the LAPD had already received 1,000
National Guard troops and that he only had two platoons of deputies
available. Odenthal quickly asked the LAPD liaison what the LAPD
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was doing with the resources that it already had, to which the
liaison responded that that didn't make any difference. Odenthal
finally told the LAPD liaison that until the LAPD knew what it was
doing with the resources already allotted to it, the Sheriff's
Department would not allocate additional resources. After the
liaison went back and spent some checking to see how the current
resources allotted to the LAPD were being used, the request for
manpower was drastically reduced.
4. Odenthal's View of Problems With The LAPD During the Civil
Disturbances
During the course of the interview, Odenthal said that from
his perspective the following appeared to be the major problems in
dealing with the LAPD during the course of the civil disturbances:
(a) LAPD's EOC did not become operational in time so
that it worked effectively during the course of the civil
disturbances.
(b) LAPD did not utilize its resources effectively, nor
did the various bureaus share resources. Odenthal discussed
the decentralized approach of the LAPD during the course of a
large scale civil disturbance and pointed out that such an
approach can lead to an uncoordinated response. Specifically,
each of the Bureaus fights for resources independently and
stockpiles those resources rather than sharing them with other
Bureaus that may need them. This, in turn, results in
inflated requests for resources and deployment of resources
where they are not needed. Odenthal said that in many cases
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this occurred during the riots in that in some areas the LAPD
had resources available to it but did not deploy them because
they either did not realize they had them or could not get
sufficiently organized to deploy them effectively. Odenthal
observed that there appeared to be a lack of coordination
among the Bureaus.
(c) LAPD was missing at least one level of command.
Odenthal said that it seemed to him that the LAPD's command
above the field lieutenant level was missing during the
critical time of the civil disturbances.
(d) The LAPD made direct requests for assistance outside
of the Mutual Aid Plan. This point was discussed at the
earlier interview and was reiterated by Lt. Odenthal during
this discussion.
s. Additional Interviews That Might Prove Helpful
I asked Lt. Odenthal for the names of other people in LASO and
also in LAPD who would have first-hand information and experience
with respect to how the LAPD's EOC operated during the course of
the recent civil disturbances. In response, Odenthal suggested
that we interview the following people:
Lt. Don Rodriguez - LASO. Odenthal said that Lt. Rodriguez
was stationed in the LAPD's EOC during the civil disturbances. He
said Rodriguez's telephone number is 974-4205, and noted that
Rodriguez was in the LAPD's EOC during the second night of the
disturbances.
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Sgt. Bob Puente - LASO. Puente is stationed in Whittier and
his telephone number is (310) 946-7212. Lt. Odenthal said that
during Thursday, April 30, 1992, Sgt. Puente was in the LAPD's EOC
as the LASO liaison.
Sgt. Tim Anderson - LAPD Metro Division. Lt. · odenthal said
that Anderson would have information that might prove valuable on
this topic.
The interview was concluded at approximately 2:30 p.m.
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