Rialto officer’s death a blow to a police force on the rebound

When Officer Sergio Carrera Jr. was shot and killed while serving a search warrant Thursday, he was part of a revamped Rialto Police Department, an aggressive force under new leadership looking to put a controversial past behind it.

So while the community and fellow officers mourned the death of the 29-year-old SWAT officer Friday, there were vows to keep moving forward and not return to the days when a fed-up City Council voted to liquidate the department.

“Things have improved 100% since the new chief came in,” said Mayor Grace Vargas. “They are doing what they are trained to do, getting gang members off the street. We wish things like yesterday didn’t happen, but our department is now in better hands.”

In 2005, Vargas was the only member of the City Council who didn’t vote to disband the police and bring in the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to patrol the streets.

“I really didn’t know what was going to happen. All I knew is, I wanted my Police Department based in the community,” she said. The council’s decision, eventually overturned by a court order, was an expression of public exasperation with a police force in turmoil for more than a decade.

Its own officers filed more than 100 lawsuits against the department, many alleging racism and sexual harassment.

In two federal lawsuits, officers accused former Chief Michael Meyers and former Deputy Chief Arthur Burgess, both black, of discrimination against non-black officers.

The police were also accused of slow response times and letting a drug and gang culture flourish in the city of 100,000.

While crime rates fell elsewhere in San Bernardino County, they jumped 71% in Rialto between 1998 and 2004, according to FBI statistics. Mayor Vargas said 27 police officers quit during this time of turmoil.

“I didn’t think so much we wanted to disband the police but I thought we needed a change,” said City Councilman Ed Scott, who voted to dissolve the force.

The first thing they did was hire Mark Kling as chief. Kling had been chief in Baldwin Park.

“I think we had a lot of management problems before and the leadership was bad,” Scott said. “Now morale is really good, and we are almost fully staffed.”

Kling did not return calls seeking an interview.

The crime rate has dropped over the last few years, although there have been several recent shootings, including the deaths of a 16-year-old boy and Carrera.

Late Thursday, police arrested Jaranard Thomas, 32, of Rialto and booked him on suspicion of murder of a police officer. He is being held without bail and is expected to be arraigned early next week. Carrera was killed during a struggle with Thomas while serving a warrant at Thomas’ house.

Yet not everyone likes new police tactics, which have included several major sweeps in the last year aimed at suspected drug dealers, similar to the one Carrera was involved in.

Around West Cascade Drive, where the officer was shot, the police came in for harsh criticism from residents Friday.

At the Whipp Appeal barbershop, several customers were concerned that the officer’s death would bring more of what they described as harassment of Rialto’s black residents.

Barber Ricky Davis, who counted Thomas among his weekly customers, said that during his 20 years in Rialto he had often seen officers hassle residents just because they lived in neighborhoods with drug and gang problems.

“I don’t think [the police] have gotten better; they’ve gotten worse,” he said.

Customer Jay Scott said police had stopped him three times in the last two weeks while walking home. “They don’t have permission to search me, but they do it anyway,” said Scott, as he left the barbershop after his 4-year-old son Jermele’s haircut. “They’ve been to my house so many times, and I’m not even doing anything for them to come to my house.”

Longtime Rialto resident Mark Robinson Sr., an associate minister at Greater Faith Bible Church, supports the police but said the department needs to involve the community more.

“I still see crime as very bad,” he said. “You have high functioning gang members and drug dealers who came and set up shop here and the police weren’t ready for it.” In response to the gang problem, Robinson is sponsoring a town hall meeting at 3 p.m. today at his church.

“I think the shooting of the police officer is going to spark even more people to come,” he said. “And whatever officials don’t come, they need to step out of office.”

Elsewhere in Rialto on Friday, police officers tried to deal with Carrera’s death. He is survived by a wife, a 2-year-old son, a year-old daughter, two sisters and his parents

Several of Carrera’s former partners struggled with their emotions as they returned to work. “He was a really good street cop, soft-spoken, in control and very low key, very observant,” Sgt. James Gibbons said. “He was well on his way to being an outstanding gang officer. He had a flair and a knack for identifying gang members.”

Officer Robert Morales, who worked the graveyard shift with Carrera, remembered him as a diligent but funny colleague.

“He was a confident jokester who liked to stir a lot of stuff up,” he said. “When he was around, everyone was smiling and laughing. He made sure everybody was laughing.”

david.kelly@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com