Always exciting, frequently controversial, the history of the LAPD greatly influences the history of the City of Los Angeles and law enforcement nationwide. Police officers like to joke that, the Metro Section of the Los Angeles Times would fold up and go out of business, if it wasn’t for the LAPD.

The early years of Los Angeles, like those of so many other Western towns, were rocked by violence and unbridled lawlessness. The opportunity to acquire sudden wealth by any means available, together with the absence of sorely needed laws and an adequate number of police officers, offered an open invitation to bandits, gun-slingers, gamblers and con-artists of every variety. These were the realities which the newly-born municipality struggled to overcome during the 25 tumultuous years which followed its incorporation as a City in 1850.

A degree of maturity was attained by the city with the establishment in 1869 of the first paid police force. Six officers, assigned to two shifts, served under the City Marshal William C. Warren. Salaries were derived mostly from collected fees and fines. Warren was destined to die of gunshot wounds sustained in a dispute with one of his officers in 1870.