Study Urges Big Shakeup of Irwindale Police Dept.

A city-commissioned investigation of the Irwindale Police Department has found that serious problems impair nearly every phase of police operations and threaten the safety of officers and residents of the small eastern San Gabriel Valley city.

The report, which concludes that officers lack training in such rudimentary police work as fingerprinting and drug identification, urges broad personnel and policy changes for the 27-man department, including replacing the police chief and demoting the lieutenant who serves as second in command.

Administrative neglect and political interference from the City Council were blamed in the report for contributing to a longtime feud that has split the department into rival Latino and Anglo factions and has led to death threats and intimidation.

The findings were immediately rejected by City Manager Charles Martin, who said the department’s problems were insignificant. Police Chief Julian Miranda and Lt. Charles Crawford also denied that the department has serious problems.

Martin ordered the study in the wake of a May 11 article in The Times describing a department crippled by ethnic feuding and allegations of police misconduct. The article reported that fear inside the department had compelled some officers to wire themselves for sound and secretly record conversations with fellow officers, the police chief and the city manager.

The investigation uncovered a bugging device in the mayor’s office capable of overhearing telephone and room conversations and allegations that some officers may be involved in serious crimes. The report did not specify the alleged crimes.

“We have uncovered problems in virtually every segment of the Irwindale Police Department,” wrote Xavier Hermosillo, who interviewed all 27 members of the department and monitored police operations during his two-week probe. “Some of the problems present a major threat to the protection and safety of residents and businesses and must be immediately corrected.”

Hermosillo’s findings and recommendations, which were presented to a special meeting of the City Council Wednesday night, were criticized by Martin, who said he would hire an outside consultant to conduct another review of the department, the third in three years.

“I acknowledge some minor problems, but I reject out of hand that we have a rinky-dinky department, a Mickey Mouse department,” Martin said at the meeting. “I’m not going to jump at rash personnel changes. We have good personnel from top to bottom.”

Martin’s comments were applauded by several Anglo officers who attended the meeting and sat in a group across the council chambers from several Latino policemen, who were silent during the meeting.

The City Council did not discuss or take an official position on the report at the meeting but did approve Martin’s call for a third study.

Some of the councilmen said after the meeting that they disagreed with the city manager’s characterization of the department’s problems.

“They’re not minor problems,” Councilman Joseph Breceda said. “When you have death threats, the problems can’t be minor.”

The report’s conclusions surprised many police officers and residents who initially believed that Martin had hired Hermosillo, who handles public relations for the city, to gloss over the department’s problems.

‘Hip Pocket’

“We all thought Hermosillo was in Martin’s hip pocket,” said Fred Barbosa, a 36-year resident of this city of 1,000 residents and several big industries. “Then Hermosillo comes out with something objective. Now all of a sudden, he’s not worth a hoot.”

Several of the dozen officers interviewed for The Times article said the feud had split the department into a largely Anglo “A Team” and a largely Latino “B Team.” A handful of “B Team” officers said they had received death threats after they reported assaults on Latino prisoners and incidents of police misconduct to Martin and Chief Miranda.

They said the department’s problems were allowed to deteriorate because of indifference on the part of police administrators and city officials. Several officers pointed to Crawford, the department’s second in command, as a major source of the problems, saying he blatantly used much of his work day to operate his personal auto parts business from his Police Department office.

Hermosillo’s report confirmed these and other problems, drawing a portrait of a department flawed by untrained personnel, antiquated equipment, staffing shortages and widespread police neglect and misconduct.

Public Safety

For instance, Hermosillo found that street-corner drug-dealing and abuse were being ignored, because of staffing shortages and administrative neglect, and that public safety was compromised by officers and reserves manning posts for which they are not adequately trained.

“Some of these problems leave the city wide open to lawsuits and potentially major embarrassment and economic loss,” Hermosillo wrote.

Hermosillo refused to comment on allegations by some officers that others on the department had engaged in criminal wrongdoing. However, The Times learned that these allegations involve drug-dealing by officers and the theft of property from Mexican nationals who had been stopped in Irwindale.

“Officers told us of the wrongdoing, but we didn’t have the authority necessary to investigate the allegations,” Hermosillo said in an interview. “We left it up to the City Council to decide what steps to take.”

Hermosillo said sweeping organizational changes are needed to resolve the feud and other problems. He recommended that Miranda, police chief since 1978, be moved to a newly created position of police commissioner, serving largely as a liaison between city officials and the Police Department, and that a new police chief be hired from outside.

Recommendation Made

He recommended that Crawford be demoted to the rank of sergeant or below, saying he was perceived as contributing to the feud by aligning himself with the Anglo officer faction.

Hermosillo said he was puzzled by Martin’s criticism of his report, because the city manager did not specify what areas of the report he believed were flawed.

Both Miranda and Crawford said they felt vindicated by Martin’s rejection of the report.

“I think he was great,” Miranda said. “I think he called it right on the button.”