More Police Stations Will Get Banking Machines : Safety: Another 13 ATMs will be installed citywide in effort to help public avoid danger when withdrawing cash. Nine have been available under pilot program.

Hoping to give more ATM users safe havens from robbers, the Los Angeles Police Credit Union will install banking machines in police stations across the city.

ATMs are already available at nine LAPD facilities under a pilot program; another 13 will be installed next year, said Kimberly Phillips, president and chief executive officer of the credit union.

“We’re hoping that the public will see it as a good community service and begin looking at police stations as a good place to start accessing cash,” she said.

The pilot program began when the City Council, at the urging of San Fernando Valley Councilman Hal Bernson, voted unanimously in late 1993 to install ATMs in several stations after a series of crimes against ATM users.

Use of the banking machines is regarded as dangerous in areas that are deserted at night. One crime that drew particular attention was the March, 1993, slaying of Sherri Foreman, 29, a pregnant woman who died March 31 after she was stabbed near an ATM in Sherman Oaks by a would-be carjacker. Her 13-week-old fetus did not survive.

*

The police credit union, which had already installed ATMs in four LAPD stations for use by credit union members, was ultimately selected by the council to oversee the pilot program.

Since then, the number of ATMs has been expanded to include machines in Parker Center headquarters Downtown, the Police Academy, a police substation in the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills Shopping Center and the Van Nuys, Devonshire, 77th Street, Central and Harbor divisions.

Several banks that had been asked to submit proposals to install ATMs in police stations told city officials in 1993 that they were reluctant to participate because they feared that the cash machines would not be used frequently enough to pay for their installation and maintenance costs.

The credit union, however, had different goals: to serve its members in the Police Department and to become a safe place for the public to take care of banking needs, particularly at night, Phillips said.

So far, most business at many police station ATMs has been done by police officers. “But I don’t think a lot of people are aware” that the machine is available to the public, one Devonshire Division officer said.

That is not the case everywhere. An ATM installed several months ago at the 77th Street station has been well received by residents.

“They’re surprised, it’s a good location for them, and they feel safe,” Officer John Jenal said.

Deputy Police Chief Martin Pomeroy said he hopes that installing the machines in stations across the city will reduce the number of ATM-related crimes.

“I think it’s wonderful that we could invite the community to take care of some of their personal business in an atmosphere of safety and comfort,” Pomeroy said.

*

Pomeroy said he is depending on the news media, community-based policing programs and word-of-mouth to get the news out to residents that the ATMs will be available.

He is expected to join Bernson and Van Nuys Municipal Judge Michael S. Luros on Monday at the Devonshire Division to announce plans to expand the program citywide.

It was Luros who pushed the idea to Bernson and police of placing ATMs in station lobbies after a rash of stabbings and shootings at ATM locations.