New Police Chief Faces Challenge

Arb Campbell became the new police chief in Newport Beach last Tuesday. We wish him luck. He’ll need it.

It’s not easy being a police chief anywhere. But Campbell has a special problem in taking over the Newport Beach department. He not only has to create an image and reputation for himself, but must somehow undo the image the department has in the coastal community and throughout Orange County. That will be much harder to do.

Chief Campbell is off to a good start. He is well aware of the department’s reputation for being overly aggressive, especially toward teen-agers and minorities. If he wasn’t aware of it before, he has a 700-page management audit the department received last month from the National League of Cities to guide him.

The audit recommended that the new chief and the entire department assign high priority to reducing the number of complaints about Newport Beach police, noting that “the continuous complaints and claims of excessive force are--whether unfounded or not--contributing to an undesirable image for the department.”

More than 100 lawsuits and claims accusing the department of excessive force, false arrest or civil rights violations have been filed against Newport Beach police in the last eight years. There have been 40 formal complaints filed since last July. That’s too many for a department the size of Newport Beach.

In accepting the chief’s job, Campbell has also accepted the challenge. He has acknowledged that “ . . . some officers can use a little better discretion in enforcement tactics and improve their enforcement attitudes.” The hostile attitudes of those officers has fostered a widespread belief in the existence of police brutality in Newport Beach. That’s something the new chief must waste no time in correcting before it seriously undermines the harmony and close cooperation needed between the police and public.