Postscript: : Stanton Police Still Troubled, but Not by Past

Because of the size of the small police force, the tragic and sometimes controversial events of two years ago seemed dramatically underscored.

In March, 1983, Stanton Police Officer Anthony Sperl shot and killed 5-year-old Patrick Mason after mistaking a toy gun the child pointed at him for a real weapon. In June, another officer killed a pedestrian who ran in front of the officer’s car during patrol. Three months later, a Stanton vice detective was disciplined after admitting that he had sex with a prostitute while he was on duty.

Police Chief Resigned Then, six months after that, Stanton Police Chief Ronald Johnson resigned to become chief of the new Cathedral City Police Department, taking seven Stanton officers with him. Another six officers left by the end of the year, mostly for better-paying jobs, leaving the Police force woefully understaffed.

Now, nearly a year later, most of those involved in the controversies are gone, replaced with new officers who, according to Police Chief Robert Eason, either don’t know or don’t particularly care about the past.

The chronic personnel turnover persists, however, and relatively low pay--the primary reason officers left--has generally caused a bigger morale problem than tragedies ever did.

Even with a recent 19.4% pay raise, Stanton police officers are still the lowest paid in Orange County, according to Eason, who succeeded Johnson last year.

The dog catcher in Westminster makes “more money than our top-scale officer,” said Eason, a police captain who became acting chief last February. He took the job on a permanent basis last May.

Until the city’s annual $5-million budget, of which an estimated 70% is spent on staff salaries and benefits, grows, it doesn’t appear that the “crisis-level” situation will change, said City Manager Kevin O’Rourke. He said the new City Council has made the salary situation one of its top priorities.

“We get good guys out of the academy,” said Jim Hayes, a Stanton city councilman. “They stay for a year and then they move on. What we become is a training ground and we would like to stop that.”

Recruiting new officers, Eason said, has never been the problem. He said that 700 applicants, mostly law enforcement academy graduates and current officers, have been interviewed for jobs, but they don’t meet the department’s “strict” standards.

“It’s the retention. . . ,” Eason explained. “(But) the guys get along good and people are open about leaving; they understand that we won’t retaliate, that we understand.”

Currently, 31 Stanton police officers who patrol the 3.2-square-mile city are working six-day weeks and some 12-hour days, and are not taking scheduled vacations.

Personal Contact Important Still, Eason says, “We’re looking for a different kind of policeman, people who are more interested in the person-to-person contact, not a department with helicopters, (police) dogs. We don’t even have a dog,” he said with a chuckle.

“To me, it’s a smaller community, and you’re not just a number. . . . We can do a lot better with a few quality officers than a larger number of mediocre ones,” Eason said.

“The department was in good shape before I took it over; I think it’s in better shape now. It’s been a purging of people who didn’t want to work here . . . and in some cases, we didn’t feel so bad about (them leaving). The people who are here want to be here.”

--NANCY WRIDE