Re Mark's question below:
> This [the cops who beat up visiting OC figures]
is
> the famous Hat Squad, right? The movie
> Mullholland Falls is
> about them.
Although *Mullholland Falls* calls the squad of cops charged
with suppressing organized crime the "Hat Squad," my
understanding is that the "Hat Squad" referred to LAPD's
Robbery Division. Occasionally, I'm told, the officers of the
Robbery/Homicide Division (the two units were merged in 1969)
are still called the "Hats," although the more common
appellation is the "Suits."
The detail responsible for combatting organized crime was the
Intelligence Division, run by Captain Jim Hamilton from the
late '40s through the early '60s, when it was taken over by
future chief Darryl Gates. In his autobiography *Chief*,
Gates actually talks about mobsters being met at the airport
by Intelligence detectives who suggested that their presence
wasn't really desired in LA.
There've been several movies dramatizing the work of the
Division. In the 1954 theatrical film version of
*Dragnet*, Joe Friday, working the Day Watch out of
Intelligence, is assigned to nail a Mafia figure suspected of
a gang killing. In the Edgar-winning TV-movie, *Man Against
the Mob*, George Peppard plays an LAPD sergeant chosen to
organize a "Gang-Supression Detail" (the fictional
counterpart to the real-life Intelligence Division) in
post-war LA. *LA Confidential* suggests that the gang
harassment was carried out by a detail of homicide cops
rather than a separate division (SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER
ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - and moreover that it was being
orchestrated by the commander of the Homicide Division so he
that could take over organized crime in LA without
resistance).
A non-fiction book entitled *LA Secret Police* (the authors'
names escape me) purports to tell the inside story of the
Division's abuses.
JIM DOHERTY
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