In This Police Agency, You Gotta Know the Territory

To some fanfare, the El Monte Police Department launched a new community policing initiative in 2002 as a way to reduce crime, improve the city’s image and build relationships with residents.

“If you looked around El Monte even just 16 months ago, you would see such a major difference in appearance,” said Assistant Police Chief Tom Armstrong. “We feel it’s been very successful.”

Residents familiar with the program speak glowingly of increased confidence and quicker response by police to nonemergency situations.

“The streets feel safer, and people take a little more pride in their community,” said one, April Montoya.

The theory is that police should fight criminals but also pay attention to little things, working with inspectors enforcing housing regulations, towing away abandoned cars and removing graffiti.

The result is improved community pride and enhanced quality of life, police say.

“From my personal experience,” said Senior Officer Brian Glick, “a cleaner neighborhood reduces crime.”

But a spot survey showed that many non-English-speaking residents had no knowledge of the police program. The San Gabriel Valley town’s population is mostly Latino and Asian American, and many residents have limited English skills. And the department does not keep track of how many officers speak a second language.

Getting police closer to the community they serve is the main attraction of the program, which assigns officers responsibility for specific geographic areas and has been used by other police departments nationally.

Michael Erp, director of the Washington State Institute for Community Oriented Policing, said such a district system “really allows them to focus on problems of that particular community.”

Stronger community policing was one recommendation the Christopher Commission made to the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King beating.

Today, the LAPD’s community policing philosophy “is about forming partnerships to identify problems and concerns in the community and to come up with strategies to affect the problems,” said Capt. Charlie Beck, commanding officer of the Rampart Division and former commanding officer of the Central Division.

Under El Monte’s initiative, the city of 116,000 is split into 65 tracts called reporting districts. At least one officer is assigned to each tract, which consists of about five blocks. Officers take care of their territory in addition to their regular assignment in one of five patrol areas.

The program, known as IMPACT (Improving and Maintaining Public Awareness and Community Teamwork), represents the city’s newest take on community policing, which has long been a fixture in El Monte. Most recently, a federal grant in the late 1990s led to creation of a team to zero in on drugs and gangs and a program that placed full-time officers at four schools.

“There’s a national trend to recognizing the need for community policing,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor. “It’s the recognition that policing is more efficient when officers are seen as a part of the community rather than an occupying force.”

Since the inception of El Monte’s latest program, police have distributed thousands of fliers and pamphlets in English and Spanish explaining it, tapped on hundreds of doors and held dozens of community meetings.

From March to October 2003, officers made 16,000 contacts, department data show. Officers are required to fill out monthly logs that include numbers of calls for service in their districts, whether they’ve held a community meeting, and lists of both long- and short-term projects.

Those contacts have a purpose, according to police.

“The citizens become the eyes and ears of the community,” said Sgt. Dennis Demerjian, one of two supervisors who oversee the program.

He cited a landlord who reported suspicious activity in a rear apartment, leading to two drug-related arrests. The trust established by the personal contact, a hallmark of community policing, “was everything” in the arrests, Demerjian said.

Assistant Chief Armstrong said it was too soon to tell whether the program has had an impact on crime.

Through November, major crimes had risen by about 3% from 2002 totals. Officers have “just gotten their foot in the door,” he said.

Gauging the success of the program is difficult because it does not seem to have reached many of the city’s non-English speakers. Latinos make up 72% of the population, but only a handful of more than 30 people interviewed for this story were aware of the initiative.

About 51% of residents report speaking English less than very well, according to 2000 census data.

“I’ve never heard of the program. I’ve never received any fliers or met any officer,” said homeowner Maria Rodriguez, echoing similar responses by other Spanish-speaking residents.

Asian leaders said their non-English-speaking populations are also largely unaware of the program. None of the fliers or pamphlets describing the program have been translated into Asian languages.

Asians, who account for 18% of El Monte’s population, were the city’s fastest-growing group in the last decade, increasing 74% to more than 21,000. Most of those were foreign-born, and about 14,000 reported speaking English less than very well.

Armstrong said he was surprised that non-English speakers might not know about the program. “There’s really no reason if somebody speaks a language other than English that they should be left out,” he said.

Father John Vo, associate pastor at Nativity Catholic Church, celebrates Mass in Vietnamese. He said he had not heard of the program from either the officer representing his district or parishioners. The priest said many Asian immigrants do not think positively of police, a cultural bias they may bring from their homelands.

Sam Ng is associate director of the Rosemead-based Asian Pacific Family Center, a group that works with El Monte’s Asian population. He said residents may not be aware of the program because “with the language and cultural barriers there’s problems accessing services. The El Monte Police Department has tried different ways to outreach but has had a hard time.”

Experts agreed that the effectiveness of community policing programs ultimately lies in how much officers and residents buy into them.

“Those really committed to it will do it simply because they love it,” said Robert R. Friedmann, a professor at Georgia State University who has studied community policing for 25 years.

“The best-case scenario is that you have a personal relationship with everyone in the community,” Armstrong said. “I would hope that one day that would be achieved. But in reality it’s probably some time in the future.”