During Steckel's reign as Chief of Police, Los Angeles hosted the 1932 Summer Olympic Games.

Under Steckel's regime, Mayor John Clinton Porter appointed a former detective with the L.A.P.D.

's first "air patrol", consisting of ten police officers assigned to a fixed wing squadron, was implemented in 1931.

[1] During the first years of the Great Depression, there was a movement in Los Angeles and California to deny Mexican immigrants welfare benefits in a general drive to repatriate them to Mexico, ostensibly to alleviate unemployment.

In 1931, Chief Steckel claimed, "Most of our crime problems are caused by aliens without respect for the laws of the country.