Los Angeles Police Department


The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the police department of the City of Los Angeles, California. With over 9,500 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of 473 square miles with a population of more than 3.5 million people, it is the fourth largest law enforcement agency in the United States (trailing behind the New York Police Department, Chicago Police Department and FBI). The agency is famous world wide and has been heavily fictionalized in numerous movies and television shows. It has also been involved in a number of controversies, perhaps most notably the infamous Rodney King incident and the subsequent 1992 Los Angeles riots (see Controversies below).