LAPD Tries Softer Touch

Chastened by a history of aggressive tactics that backfired, Los Angeles police are trying a softer, more sophisticated approach in their latest efforts to crack down on gang-related street violence.

They are being more careful about whom they go after, they say, and more mindful of how they are perceived. “The same old stuff with a different twist,” said Cmdr. Richard Roupoli of the LAPD’s South Bureau.

The aim is to resolve an old dilemma for the department: how to crack down on wrongdoers in South Los Angeles without stoking old resentments against police.

As Police Chief William J. Bratton rolls out new programs designed to suppress violence in time for the summer’s hottest months, he says people should notice a change: Police are trying to usher in what Roupoli calls a “surgical and strategic” approach.

But community reaction after recent LAPD anti-gang operations suggests that the police face a tough and delicate challenge if they want to avoid further alienating an already skeptical and often frustrated community.

“They took a lot of people to jail for nothing,” said Jerry Lockhart, 29 and unemployed, as he sat on a porch near the intersection of 63rd Street and Brynhurst Avenue where one of the operations was conducted.

“I understand they need to protect the community,” Lockhart said. “But help us when we need it. Don’t just mess with folks. It causes confusion.” Most of those arrested in the raid were black men, he noted. It cemented his view that the LAPD harasses black men like him on weak pretexts even as it fails to protect them from violence.

The operation Lockhart had watched was an example of what department officials say is their new way of doing business. It consisted of a series of raids by local police and federal agents that resulted in 67 arrests at targeted locations in South Los Angeles.

Police contend that such operations show how far they have come since grimmer days in South Los Angeles when aggressive policing and racial strife seemed locked in an endless feedback loop.

Rather than saturate neighborhoods with police to intimidate gangs -- tactics that once earned the LAPD a reputation for indiscriminate harassment and the moniker of an occupying army -- officers tried to tread lightly this time.

They carried warrants -- zeroing in on only a few individuals rather than conducting mass sweeps -- and tried to show more consideration for law-abiding residents. They tried to do more explaining and display more courtesy.

The strategy resulted in some unusual scenes: A few feet from where agents and officers were breaking down doors, their colleagues were handing out apologetic letters to rattled neighbors, and local ministers were standing by to bear witness, invited by police.

Meanwhile, back at the station, community-relations officers were hurriedly calling their acquaintances among locals to give them the inside scoop -- a measure aimed at quelling rumors. And after suspects were taken away in handcuffs, onlookers were invited to a meeting to talk it over.

“There is nothing new under the sun with respect to police work. But you can package it and sell it differently,” Roupoli said. “We want the community to have a comfort level with what we are doing.”

The first raid took place June 4 in the lower Baldwin Hills area. A week later, dozens of officers descended on Nickerson Gardens, then the nearby Jordan Downs project. There followed a raid on a neighborhood west of Crenshaw Boulevard in Hyde Park, and another near Manchester Boulevard and Hoover Street just west of the Harbor Freeway.

The LAPD, sheriff’s deputies and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration took part. Besides the arrests made, drugs, cash and more than two dozen guns were seized.

The operation was touted as a measure to contain violence. But most of the suspects were arrested on drug charges, largely possession and sale of controlled substances. Some were parolees who were searched and booked. Others were taken into custody on outstanding warrants and weapons violations. No homicide suspects were arrested.

Roupoli and other LAPD officials seemed eager to offer reporters not just the usual array of guns and drugs at the customary news conference when the operation was over. They also offered stories of residents’ giving raiding officers thumbs-up signs and whispered thanks.

LAPD South Bureau Chief Earl Paysinger said a key measure of success was that police have so far not received any formal complaints -- a sharp contrast to years past. It’s a sign that the new approach worked, that the sweeps would help to enlist a reluctant public in the effort to fight gang crime, he said.

However, in interviews in Hyde Park and in the Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs housing projects after the raids, ambivalence over the police actions was widespread.

A Constant Challenge

Such minority communities -- particularly black areas, where homicide rates are highest -- have a history of poor relations with the LAPD. Police face a constant challenge in trying to convince residents to step forward as witnesses after serious crimes occur, so they often lack sufficient evidence to arrest the perpetrators.

Police behavior in the past has not helped to build trust, department officials acknowledge.

Ever since former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates launched “Operation Hammer” more than a decade ago in which hundreds of people were rounded up -- many for minor crimes -- operations that amass police forces against targeted gangs have drawn criticism.

Minority leaders have faulted them as thinly veiled ventures in racial profiling, or as cosmetic remedies that make for good press but have little effect on the numbers of people being hurt and killed on city streets.

The new way, Chief Bratton said, is for anti-gang tactics to be more focused. “We are not going to repeat the mistakes of the past and line up every black and Latino kid against a wall just because they are dressed like a gang member,” he said.

He has repeated this vow over and over in South Los Angeles appearances as he has announced other anti-gang measures, ranging from last month’s raids to increased police presence and a new nuisance injunction.

Results Are Mixed

But if the raids offered a test case, results were mixed.

Some people said they were reluctant to speak about their thoughts as they glanced about to see who was standing nearby. A few praised the surgical approach. “They know who to look for and who not to,” said Venetia Burton, 44, a Jordan Downs mother of six.

Many other residents, however, said they viewed the raids as excessively forceful, and they were quick to point out that those arrested had committed only minor crimes -- or offenses they considered victimless -- not serious assaults and murder.

Among them, one message was echoed repeatedly: Save aggressive police tactics for crimes that leave people dead and injured.

Lockhart, the unemployed man, said he is often afraid, and with reason. His race makes him about nine times more likely than a white man his age to be the victim of a homicide.

Moreover, within just one block in each direction from where he was speaking, the location of the raid, there have been at least 26 killings in the past 12 years, many of them of black men. But although police “hem me up all the time,” Lockhart said, referring to being searched, “Not once have they ever asked me how I’m doing, or if I’m OK.”

“Misdemeanor cops,” snorted a 49-year-old resident of Nickerson Gardens who would give only his nickname: “Psycho.” He was standing on the lawn with friends, drinking a beer and discussing the recent raid.

He said he was feeling depressed and angry about a friend who had been shot the day before, a 22-year-old man in a coma. “All these murders and homicides and shootings, and all they is is misdemeanor cops.”

“They just come in and point guns and violate people’s rights,” said Tyreea Perkins, 10, summing up her impressions as she watched at the Jordan Downs housing project recently.

“It was really scary,” added her stepsister, Wendy Jenkins, 11, of Jordan Downs. “They were pulling people out of houses.... They should at least ask a couple questions first.”

Police concede that the operation fell short of capturing large numbers of violent-crime suspects. But they argued that the arrests may aid in the investigations of such crimes.

Seized weapons are being fingerprinted, they said. Those arrested may yet provide leads on associates who have been involved in more serious crimes. And breaking up local drug networks would help to reduce fighting over markets, they say.

But the assessment of Robert Baker, 37, interviewed at Jordan Downs, was more cautious, though optimistic. The LAPD is just “halfway there,” Baker said.

He praised the recent raids in Jordan Downs. “It does a lot of good around here,” he said. “A few years ago, there used to be a lot of trouble here: fighting and shooting. You know, the normal thing in the projects.”

Not only that, Baker said, but as a black man, he thinks he is hassled less often by the LAPD than he used to be. “They used to pull up and jack ‘em up all the time. For me, it was harassment. But I haven’t been seeing it as often. They have been trying to minimize it,” Baker said.

Yet Baker said he still hears frequent complaints about the police from fellow residents who feel needlessly harassed and inconvenienced by officers while violent criminals go free.

“Some of the stuff [the police] are doing is beneficial to the community,” he said. “But it’s a two-way street. It’s a balance.”