Latino Peace Officers’ Assn. Grows Into Influential State Political Force

Judge Samuel B. Taylor was in the middle of thanking supporters at his recent swearing-in ceremony to Orange County’s Superior Court bench when he saw the man with the dark eyes and dark suit sitting in the audience.

“And I want to personally thank,” Taylor said, pausing to look toward the man, “the Latino Peace Officers’ Assn. and their chapter president, Lou Lopez, for helping me get appointed.”

Ten years ago, Lopez, a Mexican-American police detective in Anaheim, would never have dreamed of receiving such kudos from anyone, let alone an Orange County judge. But Taylor’s comment is evidence of the political clout the statewide association has gained in recent years. Lopez chuckled and thought to himself, “We’ve come a long way, baby.”

In addition to lobbying the governor’s office on behalf of Taylor, the local chapter also has helped others, including former Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Manuel Ramirez, get appointed to the Municipal Court bench.

“I received an outstanding endorsement from them,” Ramirez said, describing a relationship that many other prospective judges and political hopefuls now eye with envy.

In the past, associations for ethnic peace officers in California were considered little more than social clubs with radical leanings. Minority officers often were encouraged to join as part of an affirmative action effort to pry open the police chief’s door and, in the case of Latinos, demand more Spanish-speaking officers, more promotions and more job opportunities.

But radical efforts often didn’t work, and many times officers went away empty-handed, recalled Vincent Calderon, 40, a California Highway Patrol sergeant in Visalia who is co-founder of the 11-year-old Latino association.

“You’ve got to use a sophisticated approach to win nowadays,” Calderon said. “The confrontation is still there, it’s just done in a subtle way. The attitude is still there, just not as vocal.”

The 1,000-member California Latino Peace Officers’ Assn. has gone through a metamorphosis from social club to one of the nation’s largest and most politically sophisticated peace officers’ groups. Because members are conservative and support law and order, they share political beliefs with the Republican Party rather than the Democratic Party. They have strong links to top-ranking Republican officials, including the governor.

“They were trailblazers,” said Gilbert Avila, special assistant to Gov. George Deukmejian in Sacramento, of the group. “From the standpoint of the governor’s office, we see the Latino Peace Officers’ Assn. as a community resource. With their members’ law enforcement backgrounds, (they) should be considered as important in the appointments process.”

Ruben Diaz, the association’s state president, sits on Deukmejian’s Latino advisory council, representing about 25 of the state’s top Latino organizations. One member is an aide to Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, and others sit on influential statewide law enforcement commissions.

Latino officers’ lever to achieve political power in the 1980s has been the state’s growing Latino population. The 1980 Census counted 4.5 million Latinos, and by the year 1991, the numbers will increase by 44% to nearly 6.5 million, comprising one-fourth the state’s population, according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

But Latino representation among those in law enforcement still lags. Of 56,600 police, sheriff’s deputies, bailiffs and other enforcement officers in the state, 6,420, or 11%, are Latino. Of the 6,141 people in supervisory positions, Latinos make up only 7.5%, according to 1980 Census figures. No figures for previous years are available.

In Orange County, Santa Ana, which has a 45% concentration of Spanish-speaking residents, has the highest percentage of bilingual officers of any city in the county: About 30% of its 330 sworn officers are bilingual.

The Orange Police Department, by contrast, has one of the lowest; there are eight Latino officers out of 120. Anaheim has only 18 Latino officers out of 325, or 5%, in a city where Latinos make up 13% of the population.

Police chiefs, who often call upon these officers as recruiters and as liaisons to the Spanish-speaking community, now swear by the Latino officers’ association, not at its members.

“We’re dealing more and more with a multilingual society,” said Chief Ted Cooke of Culver City, president-elect of the state Police Chief’s Assn. “I often write to groups like the Latino Peace Officers’ Assn.to send me their best candidates.”

Suit Alleges Discrimination

Santa Ana Police Chief Raymond C. Davis’ department is defending itself against a $3-million court action alleging discrimination and civil rights violations stemming from a case brought by three former Santa Ana Latino police officers in 1979. Even so, Davis maintains that he is a staunch advocate of the Latino officers’ association.

“Of course a couple of times within the chapter, some have tried to use it to (further) their own goals,” Davis said.

“But that occurred because of three officers trying to use the association. The other (Latino) officers clearly dissociated themselves from those people. Outside of those, we’ve never had a negative problem with LPOA.”

The three former Santa Ana police officers are claiming in U.S. District Court that they were forced out of the department. They charge that the city, Davis and 15 other current and former police officers allowed or encouraged a racist attitude in the department that constituted a discriminatory policy and a violation of their civil rights.

The plaintiffs could not be reached for comment.

Advances Cited

The atmosphere within the department has changed significantly in recent years, according to several Santa Ana police officers. They cite promotions for several Latino patrol officers to the rank of sergeant and credit Davis for establishing a departmental cultural advisory committee in 1984 composed of black, Latino and Asian officers to help deal with the city’s changing ethnic population.

“I think that the three officers, who all came from much smaller departments, had a hard time adjusting to Santa Ana’s regimentation,” said one officer who declined to be identified. “This department was run like a paramilitary operation in the old days. You couldn’t just go to the chief with a problem, you had to ask a sergeant for permission first.”

Much of the credit for the association’s new-found political awareness has gone to Fernando Aldecoa, 36, a former Santa Ana police officer who has served as statewide president of the association and is now active in the Orange County Republican Party. It was during Aldecoa’s tenure as statewide president in 1981 and 1982 that the group took its first political step in endorsing then-Atty. Gen. George Deukmejian for governor.

“We wanted to impact the system, and we were asking why can’t we have more Hispanics involved in policy-making decisions,” Aldecoa recalled.

Aldecoa pushed for local involvement in political elections, with the idea that a cohesive state effort would come later.

Although discussions were held with former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. on an increased role for the group’s members in state decisions regarding law enforcement, nothing was accomplished, Aldecoa said.

Deukmejian Praised

“Every year we would ask, ‘Hey, how about some consideration of major appointments?’ He’d (Brown) nod, but nothing would get done.”

With Deukmejian, attorney general at the time, the response was different, he said.

“Every time we called him, he would attend or speak at our meetings. He even traveled to San Diego once. If we had a convention and we’d need the attorney general, he’d be there.

“Despite a lot of internal bickering, we went on the record for him. He never asked us for anything. I think he took it as a responsibility to us as a law enforcement group,” Aldecoa said.

The endorsement was significant because some members thought getting involved in politics was wrong, while others favored then-gubernatorial candidate Mario Obledo, a Latino, over Bradley or Deukmejian.

Surprise Call

Aldecoa said the group made repeated telephone calls to Bradley’s campaign office, “but they never returned our calls.”

On the other hand, Obledo, who was state Health and Welfare secretary under Brown, was viewed as a distant contender.

Then came a surprise call from Deukmejian’s office after the Latino peace officers’ endorsement.

“I thought he was going to shake my hand, take pictures and send me out the back door,” Aldecoa said. Instead, Deukmejian sought Aldecoa’s opinion on law enforcement programs.

When Deukmejian was elected governor, Aldecoa was asked to join the governor’s transition team. A few weeks later, Aldecoa got another telephone call: Deukmejian’s office offered him the job of vice chairman of the seven-member state Youthful Offender Parole Board. Aldecoa now holds that position, a full-time job that pays about $55,000 a year.

Appointments to Boards

“The important thing is that for the first time in a long time, we have an impact to identify qualified Latinos and put them in decision-making positions on parole boards or any law-enforcement advisory group,” Aldecoa said.

Charlene Williams, one of the Orange County chapter’s non-Latino members, is an example of the political diversity within the group, which now has more white members and more people who belong to other minority groups.

“I’m a Democrat who worked in Tom Bradley’s campaign, but I think grass-roots Democrats and Republicans can work together,” she said. “I think the only way of getting ahead is to be very politically cognizant of what’s going on.”

Williams, 43, was recently appointed to the Advisory Committee on Juvenile Delinquency by the state Department of the Youth Authority.

Other members, such as Rick Bermudez, 27, a Garden Grove patrolman, said he joined because the members had sponsored scholarships and events for poor people, including those in Buena Clinton, a predominantly Latino slum.

Membership Tripled

Lopez, who is an outspoken Republican, admits he is following in Aldecoa’s footsteps while attempting to further the county chapter’s new image.

Although there have been controversies, the last two years have been banner years for Orange County’s Latino members. In addition to lobbying on behalf of prospective judges, the membership has tripled to almost 130 members, making it the state’s largest chapter. Four of its members, including Lopez and Aldecoa, have been appointed to influential state law enforcement commissions.

Lopez doesn’t encourage support for affirmative action. Also, the leaders of the local chapter hate to make waves. Those beliefs don’t sit well with the more militant group members in the northern part of the state.

Explaining his approach, Lopez said that Latinos have to understand that politically, “you first have to win before you move on to the next stage.”

Fortunately, Republicans hold power in many law enforcement agencies in Sacramento, Lopez said.

He would like the state association to follow the Orange County chapter’s lead.

Views Disputed

“The guys up north are afraid of taking a plunge,” Lopez said. “We’re tied in to the Republican Party right now, and the majority of the members in the county chapter are Republican. We believe in the Republican way. I was asked if we believe in President Reagan and the ‘Duke.’ Of course we do!”

In Sacramento, though, it’s a different story.

Fernando Gonzales, a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy who is president of the local chapter, said, “We’re not a political organization but a law-enforcement one.” He said, however, that he and others in the association who are Democrats do not mind the group’s current swing toward the Republican Party. Traditionally, those in law enforcement are conservative, he noted.

Also, Gonzales and other members say that Latinos are still underrepresented in most departments and law enforcement agencies.

They point to a Sacramento County affirmative action plan that indicates the need to increase the number of Latinos in the Sheriff’s Department.

Lopez conceded that Orange County lags dramatically in numbers of Latino officers.

“We really need more,” he said, especially in the Anaheim Police Department.

Extra-Pay Issue

He added that one of the biggest obstacles is extra pay for bilingual officers. He is working on a proposal to raise the pay for bilingual officers in Anaheim, he said.

Garden Grove pays its bilingual officers an extra $125 a month, ranking it first among departments offering extra pay for bilingual officers. Santa Ana is next, at $100, and Anaheim, at $25, is last, Lopez said.

Because they can offer more in extra pay, Santa Ana and Garden Grove are hiring the greatest numbers of bilingual officers, Lopez said.

Such problems present a paradox to the local chapter. On one hand, they seek greater political influence, but on the other, being influential means keeping a positive, and at times lower, profile than their Northern California counterparts, Lopez admitted.

“Once the Orange County chapter got away from pushing for affirmative action, things just got rolling,” Lopez said. “We still push, it’s just very subtle.

‘Community Resource’

“Basically, we let the police chiefs run their own stores. If we hear of problems like a lack of minority officers, we usually call them up and offer any assistance that we can. We tell them we’re a community resource that should be used.”

Rather than break down doors, they pry them open gently. They use demographic surveys of the growing Latino population, Lopez and others said.

Lopez’s strong Republican sentiments and anti-affirmative action stance often make him a controversial figure at statewide association meetings.

Although the group was not founded as a political organization, the transition continues. “We realize the way the machine works,” Diaz said. “If you want to have your say, you have to get involved and work within the machinery.”

Rudy DeLeon, who was the first Latino division commander in the Los Angeles Police Department and is now an aide to state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, said change comes slowly.

Respect Sought

“We’ve always been very passive and very conservative,” he said of Latino officers. “We’ve been detectives, and we’ve been well-liked in our departments, but we haven’t progressed. If there’s one thing we’re trying to raise, it’s respect. That’s the key word. We do have the knowledge and cultural uniqueness that we’re aware of that the majority of other officers are not aware of, and we can be a great catalyst.”

For Lopez, the Anaheim Police Department’s most-decorated officer, another goal is to erase the stereotype of minority “super cops.”

(In his 16 years with the department, Lopez was recognized as Policeman of the Year by his peers in 1979, and also was named Police Officer of the Year by the Young Jaycees for pulling a woman and child from a burning car.)

“I’m too old to start working graveyard shifts and making sacrifices and taking exams to get promotions. The guys coming up under me should get the promotions,” he said. “We’ve opened the doors for them.”