Advertisement

Bill Kolender dies at 80; former San Diego police chief led reforms

Share

Bill Kolender, who reformed the San Diego Police Department as chief from 1975 to 1988 and later became San Diego County sheriff, died Tuesday at age 80 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Under Kolender, the department moved away from the more physically aggressive type of law enforcement that once seemed to fit a military town like San Diego but was no longer favored by City Hall while Pete Wilson, a fellow Republican, was mayor.

Kolender stressed that police officers should work closely with community groups, improve relationships with minorities and low-income neighborhoods, and be restrained in the use of force -- a style known as community-oriented policing.

Advertisement

Kolender had been appointed as part of Wilson’s overall campaign to change city government. With Kolender as chief, the department hired more women, gays and lesbians and began a civilian review board

“Convincingly self-effacing, with a Solomon-like reputation for integrity and empathy, there is perhaps no more popular public figure in San Diego today,” The Times said in a 1985 profile. “Even his officers on the beat, where Kolender spent relatively little time before ascending to management, appear to genuinely like him.”

As chief, Kolender was encouraged by political power brokers to run for mayor but he declined. “I’m a cop, not a politician,” he often said.

After retiring as chief in 1988, Kolender worked for the Copley Press for three years before being named director of the California Youth Authority by then-Gov. Wilson.

He defeated an incumbent sheriff in 1994 and was reelected three times. He retired during his fourth term in 2009, leading to the appointment of Bill Gore, a close friend, as sheriff.

In announcing Kolender’s death, Gore called him “a legend in law enforcement.”

Tall and impeccably dressed -- often seen on the La Jolla party circuit in a tuxedo -- Kolender balanced the competing power groups of San Diego politics: community groups, the media, elected officials, business and academic leaders, and rank and file officers and their labor union.

Advertisement

“He cared deeply for the frontline deputies and officers who worked for him and loved them as family,” Gore said.

Former Mayor Jerry Sanders said that the San Diego policing style changed dramatically under Kolender. Sanders was a beat cop in those early years and later became chief before going into community service and then politics.

“Bill had worked in community relations and had contacts in every community, every neighborhood,” Sanders said. “He knew how to work with everybody. Community-oriented policing started with Bill and spread. His influence was felt in departments throughout the nation.”

Having established his credibility, Kolender was able to withstand several controversies as chief: over fixing traffic tickets, the alleged conduct of some officers, and how police responded to the mass shooting at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro in July 1984 in which a gunman killed 21 persons and wounded 15 until he was killed by a police sharpshooter.

Some survivors said police had been too slow to react, but Kolender stoutly rejected that view: “I think they handled themselves with great courage and great restraint when necessary.” The controversy faded away.

William Barnett Kolender was born May 23, 1935 in Chicago. The family moved to San Diego where his father ran a jewelry store downtown.

Advertisement

Kolender liked telling jokes, often about his upbringing in an orthodox Jewish family and how his father was disappointed when he left college and joined the San Diego Police Department at age 21.

“My father went ballistic when I joined the cops,” Kolender told San Diego Magazine in 2006. “He says, ‘Bilvel, it’s a gentile’s job. Be somebody. I’m embarrassed. I can’t go outside.’”

Kolender then added with a laugh, “Then later, of course, the family joke was when I was named chief of police, it was all OK.”

In his final years, Kolender lived in an assisted living facility. He died at a local hospital, surrounded by his family.

Kolender is survived by his wife, Lois, sons Michael and Dennis, daughter Randie Kolender-Hock and stepdaughter Jodi Karas.

One of the women hired by the Police Department while Kolender was chief was a recent Ohio State graduate named Shelley Zimmerman, who joined the force in 1982. After decades at various assignments and ranks, she was named chief by Mayor Kevin Faulconer.

Advertisement

“His vision of community policing improved the way we police today,” Zimmerman said. “I am grateful I had the privilege of working for him.”

Twitter: @LATsandiego

Advertisement