‘Born-Again’ Christians Who Also Carry a Badge : Piety in the Ranks Raises Concern in LAPD

The man proclaimed himself and his colleague to be Christians and told the audience, “If we followed God’s rules, we wouldn’t be here tonight.” He stressed the importance of the church in community life and in the fight against drugs.

“God didn’t give us a spirit of fear,” his colleague declared. “He gave us a spirit of courage.”

Sunday services at the Crystal Cathedral? Hardly. The man and his colleague, John R. Wilbanks and Vance M. Proctor, are Los Angeles police captains. Their comments were delivered at a neighborhood meeting in the Oakwood area of Venice where citizens had gathered earlier this year to discuss crime suppression.

The episode, which is being reviewed by police administrators to determine whether the captains’ comments were improper, illustrates what some in the Los Angeles Police Department contend is a growing influence of “born-again” Christians in the upper ranks of the force. Much of their concern focuses on the department’s No. 2 man, Assistant Chief Robert L. Vernon, who is a lay elder at a fundamentalist church and helps organize religious retreats that attract hundreds of Los Angeles police officers.

Concerns Expressed

Directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League say they are concerned that Christian fundamentalism among some ranking members of the department influences personnel decisions, including promotions and transfers. Moreover, they express fear that it could erode the LAPD’s image of impartiality toward the public.

High-ranking officers of fundamentalist Christian faith deny that their religion plays a role in their dealings with subordinates or citizens.

“I’ve never tried to influence anyone’s thinking in that way, but I’ll tell you one thing,” Wilbanks said, “when you look at the crap that our officers have been involved in lately--contract murders, stealing yachts, dope--I think our morals are getting pretty loose. We need something.”

Both Wilbanks and Proctor explained that they innocently mentioned their religious beliefs at the Oakwood neighborhood meeting in March to help them more easily interact with the audience, which included neighborhood church leaders and other self-proclaimed Christians.

Yet such comments by police supervisors, the Protective League believes, have left many ambitious officers with the impression that embracing their boss’s religion might help come promotion time.

‘Get the Message’

“You look at who gets promoted, and you get the message pretty quickly,” league President George V. Aliano said. “You want to get ahead? You become a part of it.”

Two high-ranking officers told The Times that in recent months they have received resumes from patrol officers identifying themselves as Christians when seeking transfer to better jobs.

“I think it’s a misplaced attempt at currying favor with me,” said one administrator, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. “It used to be in this department that if you wanted to get ahead, you became a Mason because that’s what the (top) brass were into at the time. Now, there’s a definite feeling that if you’re in the Christian clique, it may enhance your chances of selection to a good assignment.”

Robert M. Talcott, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the civilian board that oversees the LAPD, said he has heard “rumors” of a born-again Christian “hierarchy” within the force but was not aware specifically of any religious-based favoritism among officers.

“Obviously, we would be concerned about any activity that encroached on the separation between church and state or created pockets of believers and non-believers,” Talcott said. “If we were aware of it, there would be some changes made.”

Department policy does not forbid discussing religion on the job, although supervisors are precluded from asking questions of a religious or political nature during promotional exams.

Chief Daryl F. Gates, at least publicly, has steered clear of the religion issue. The chief has declined past opportunities to publicly divulge his own faith and declined to be interviewed for this story.

Many officers attribute the rise of born-again Christian sentiment within the LAPD to Vernon, Gates’ assistant chief.

As head of the LAPD’s Office of Operations, Vernon commands all of the department’s patrol units and most of its detectives--about 80% of the city’s 7,000 police officers. He is also a lay elder at Grace Community Church of the Valley in Sun Valley, where he has delivered occasional sermons for more than 10 years.

Does Not Mix Religion, Duty

In an interview last week, Vernon, 53, said that while “my relationship with God is the most important thing in my life,” he does not mix religion with his duties in the department.

“I have been called to be a police administrator, not a minister--that’s how I serve God,” he said. “In my off-duty contacts, I’m very willing to share my faith when asked and when invited, but I think it would be a gross abuse of power, for instance, to have a staff meeting, to talk about John 5:18 and give a sermon. . . . That would be a terrible thing to do. They would have to sit there and listen to it.”

Vernon does not deny that there have been times on the job when he discussed religion, but those occasions, he said, were innocent and rare.

He detailed one incident in a sermon that was taped at his church in 1982:

“I worked with a partner one time . . . and had been sharing my relationship with God with him and everything and he was watching me very carefully and pretty soon he said, ‘Hey, Bob, have you noticed something? I don’t use half the profanity as I used to.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I noticed it.’ He said, ‘Have you noticed that I no longer smoke two packs a day? I only smoke two cigars a day.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I have noticed that.’ He said, ‘I’m almost a Christian, huh?’ And the guy was sincere.”

Selected on Ability

Each of the last three lieutenants hand-picked by Vernon to be his adjutant--a prestigious assignment that invariably leads to promotion--has been a born-again Christian. So, too, is Vernon’s chief of staff, Cmdr. Mark A. Kroeker, 43, who attends Vernon’s church.

Nonetheless, Vernon insisted that he has selected his adjutants strictly on their abilities. The fact that the last three adjutants have shared his essential religious convictions is coincidental, he said.

Vernon also explained that he selected Kroeker for his present job because Kroeker was the consensus choice among other top officers who work in the Office of Operations. Where or how Kroeker worships had no bearing on his decision to choose him, Vernon said.

To illustrate that point, the assistant chief offered the names of all 16 captains for whom he has authorized pay grade advancements in recent years. He denied knowing any of their religious affiliations.

“There might be a couple of them that are churchgoers--I haven’t asked them,” Vernon said.

Constitutional Tenets

Mindful of constitutional tenets intended to separate church and state, Vernon said that he does not accept telephone calls in his office during business hours if they concern religious matters. He said he rents a post office box where he receives religious mail and added that he pays his secretary out of his own pocket to work after hours in handling his church-related correspondence.

A tall, sturdy man, Vernon said he believes that the teachings of the Bible--those advocating integrity, honor and loyalty--are inextricably woven with his duties as a Los Angeles police officer. But that, he said, is as far as his faith extends while on the job.

Subordinates described him as a tireless worker too busy with ramrodding departmental affairs to bring religion into his office.

“I don’t see a bunch of captains and commanders coming in here with Bibles tucked under their arms; I don’t think he’d allow it,” observed Vernon’s personal aide, Sgt. Peter B. Durham, who described his own religion as “irreverent.”

Estimates of the number of born-again Christians in the LAPD vary from several hundred to a few thousand. Whatever the true figure, Christian officers generally agree that their ranks have deepened in recent years, influenced in no small measure by Vernon’s off-duty endeavors.

Until he sold his interests in 1986 for financial reasons, Vernon was a major shareholder in Creative Communications Ministries, a partnership that operates five Christian radio stations in California and Colorado.

Published Books

He has published two Christian-oriented books, one of which, “L.A. Cop, Peacemaker In Blue,” details how Vernon’s faith has helped him in his police work. In its introduction, the book asks: “Can a cop who meets crime and violence head-on every day really be a peacemaker? Do the teachings of Christ have real meaning in a life situation where part of staying alive is being ‘tough?’ Bob Vernon’s career as an L.A. cop offers a resounding ‘Yes’ to each of these questions.”

For more than 10 years, Vernon also has helped organize weekend retreats for officers at Hume Lake Christian Camp, 65 miles east of Fresno.

About 60 Los Angeles policemen and their wives attended the first retreat there in the 1970s, Vernon said. Since then, the gatherings have become so popular that they are held several times each year, often attracting as many as 400 lawmen who spend much of the weekend praying and discussing their relationships with Jesus Christ.

“I think there is a spiritual awakening in law enforcement in general,” said Vernon, who wears a pinkie ring that depicts an ichthus, an abstract, fish-like symbol that helped Christians identify each other in biblical times.

‘Positive Balance’

“I think police officers are beginning to realize that they can become very cynical on the job, that they need some positive balance in their lives. Many of them are turning to the church and a relationship to God to achieve that balance.”

He noted that smaller numbers of Jewish and Catholic officers in the LAPD have fraternal clubs that also meet on a regular basis.

However, Police Protective League directors said they could not recall Jewish or Catholic police commanders ever having spoken publicly about their religious beliefs or being as openly dogmatic as many of their born-again counterparts.

“I think it’s dangerous when you have members of this department in policy-making positions speaking in religious terms--regardless of their beliefs,” said league Director Frank J. Grimes. “It erodes the public’s belief in impartiality . . . and it goes to recruiting as well. Some people could easily be dissuaded from coming on this department if they felt management was dominated by a certain belief.”

Fears Dismissed

Vernon dismisses such fears, saying he and other managers value “diversity” among officers. He pointed out that there have been times when he has been forced to criticize other born-again Christian officers who thought they would impress him by demonstrating their religious beliefs while on duty.

“I’ll have some guy come and proudly tell me, ‘I stopped a hitchhiker and I set him down in my car and before I finished the ticket, I shared my faith with him and he prayed to become a Christian,’ ” Vernon said. “I aways say, ‘Oooh, that’s not good, that’s not right.’ ”

As for the suggestion that officers sometimes attend his retreats at Hume Lake to curry favor, Vernon said: “It’s very possible that some people go just to impress me. Human beings are like that. I’m sure there are people in the department who look at the kind of shoes I’m wearing and say, ‘Gee, maybe I should wear the same shoes.’ If anything, that turns me off.”

Nor, Vernon said, is he necessarily impressed when he recognizes officers under his command attending his church, where Vernon’s past preachings have commonly intermingled readings from the Bible and Los Angeles police crime reports.

‘Cops for Christ’

Twenty of his tape-recorded “messages,” bearing such titles as “The Biblical Foundations of America” and “The True Masculine Role,” sell at the church book store for $2.50 each. Some of Vernon’s recordings also are mailed free to lawmen throughout the country by “Cops for Christ,” a “tape ministry” formed five years ago by two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

In a sermon Vernon taped in 1982, “A Policeman’s Perspective of God,” Vernon describes how he prayed for divine guidance 11 years earlier when he was captain of the LAPD’s station in Venice. At the time, Vernon said, he had been targeted by a group of radicals who planned to vilify him before the county Human Relations Committee.

The night before the committee’s meeting, Vernon said, he opened his Bible and, by happenstance, read a passage of Scripture in which God punishes the wicked and “the Earth shakes and all its people live in turmoil yet its pillars are firm.” The next morning, Feb. 9, 1971, Vernon and millions of others were shaken out of bed by the Sylmar earthquake, a 6.5 temblor in which 58 people died.

“You know, a very strange thing happened, maybe not so strange,” Vernon told the congregation at Grace Church in 1982. “The paid informers and liars that would be there at that (meeting) were so literally shook up that they didn’t attend. The only people that attended that meeting were people from the community . . . and they showed up and they said, ‘This is a wonderful program that Capt. Vernon has going here,’ and they went on and on and the commission said, ‘Right on, Vernon, keep in there!’ and I walked away saying, ‘Praise God. He’s in control.’ ”