The Beat : ‘Happy, Helpful Policeman’ Nurtures Community Ties on Foot Patrol

Officer Charles J. Cooper rarely catches a thief and hasn’t conducted a criminal investigation in more than two years. Nevertheless, the 17-year veteran of the Glendale Police Department is probably the most recognized officer on the streets and one of the most valued on the force.

As Glendale’s only foot patrol officer downtown, Cooper’s daily visits with shopkeepers and friendly banter with residents have set him apart from his colleagues.

“He comes in and talks with the customers and gives advice to us about what we do about our shoplifters and what we do about our street people,” said Peggy Leibeling, manager of the Brand Boulevard Salvation Army thrift store. “He’s a happy, helpful policeman and he’s great.”

The former vice detective with the inviting grin and unorthodox uniform of casual shirt and shorts is the first Glendale officer assigned to full-time foot patrol since the late 1940s.

Boulevard Beat

While his colleagues cruise Glendale in cars, on motorcycles and overhead in helicopters, Cooper spends five days a week trekking the length of north Brand Boulevard in downtown Glendale and Honolulu Avenue in Montrose.

A folksy officer with a sturdy build, Cooper, 49, believes this more traditional approach to police work can improve police relations with the public and help reduce crime.

“It gives people a chance to ask a lot of ‘what if?’ questions,” said Cooper. “ ‘What if someone walks out of the store without paying for an item? How can you help me from becoming a victim of crime?’ The whole thing is an educational process.”

His daily routine includes chatting with merchants, engaging in conversation with passers-by and, in general, helping anyway he can. If the city is hosting a parade, Cooper says, he’ll pick up a hammer and nail together a bleacher. If a shopper locks his keys in his car, he’ll borrow a wire coat hanger from a nearby shop and unlock the door.

Contact With Citizens

“I’m like a liaison between the shopkeepers, shoppers and the city,” Cooper said. “People have to have verbal contact with the department, but it’s hard to talk to a police officer in a car who’s just whizzing by.”

Recently, a frantic young mother sought Cooper’s assistance after she inadvertently locked her keys and her baby inside her car.

“The mother was panicked. She was flipping out,” Cooper recalled. “But the baby was fine.”

Another time, a man asked for the officer’s assistance in identifying a strange animal hidden in the branches of a Brand Boulevard tree.

“The guy was standing under the tree and feels something drop on his head,” Cooper said, trying to contain a laugh. “ ‘Officer,’ he says to me, ‘at first I thought it was a bird, then I looked up and saw a big rat in the tree.’ ”

The creature, it turned out, was a drooling opossum.

“Possum slobber,” Cooper said simply. “It’s the natural thing for a ‘possum to do.”

Old-fashioned foot patrols fell out of vogue throughout the nation during the late 1940s and early 1950s when patrol cars gave departments far more mobility. Patrol territories expanded from several city blocks to several square miles. But, during the 1960s and 1970s, police officials noticed that diminished contact made officers less familiar with residents, said Glendale Police Chief David J. Thompson.

“We began realizing that we failed to keep in touch,” Thompson said.

In 1982, Glendale reinstated a part-time foot patrol beat in an attempt to re-establish a more casual and friendly link between the Police Department and community, the chief said.

Boston and New York are among the other cities nationwide that revived foot patrols in recent years. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department, which never dropped its downtown foot details, assigned officers to foot patrols in the San Fernando Valley.

In Glendale, as elsewhere, the merchants took to the idea.

“It gives you some kind of tradition,” said Barkev Peltekian, owner of a Brand Boulevard photography store. “If you have a policeman in the street talking to people it’s nice . . . and you always have that sense of security that there is a policeman in the street.”

Full-Time Patrol

Such reactions prompted Thompson to expand the beat to a full-time patrol in 1985, the year Cooper assumed the post and proved himself a natural for the job.

Cooper prefers a casual approach to his work.

“Coop the Cop,” his favorite nickname, is printed across the calling cards he hands out to shoppers. His nameplate reads: “Officer Chuck.”

On his daily route, Cooper waves at merchants through shop windows and calls out greetings to passers-by.

“When I first started, it was really weird,” he laughed. “Most people wouldn’t talk to me, and some of them wouldn’t even look at me. Then, after being out here a few weeks, I got some waves from people in cars and finally, ‘Hey officer, wanna cup of coffee?’ ”

A former steel mill worker, Cooper moved his wife and two children from their home in Danville, Ill., to Glendale in 1965. The steel industry had soured and he was looking for a new job.

“Back where I came from, you worked in the steel mill or as a farmer, and I didn’t know anything about farming, so here I am,” he said.

Variety of Jobs

Cooper became a clothing salesman, a grocery clerk and, later, an auto mechanic before landing a sanitation job with the City of Glendale. For nearly three years he “hung on to the back end of a garbage truck” until deciding to return to school.

First came night classes at Glendale High School, where he studied for his high school diploma. Next came police science courses at Glendale Community College and, finally, acceptance to the police academy.

For the next 15 years, he worked for the Glendale Police Department as a jailer, vice detective and patrol officer.

When the full-time foot beat opened two years ago, Cooper remembers, there was little response from other officers.

“Probably because there’s not enough action for them,” he suggested. “But, actually, this is where it’s really at. You get all sides--you get to talk to criminals, suspects and law-abiding citizens.”

Cooper’s workday begins about 9 a.m. as he pedals his bicycle to work. In the police locker room, he pulls on a powder-blue knit sport shirt and dark blue shorts while other officers are dressing in traditional dark blue police uniform.

Cinched snugly around Cooper’s waist is a black leather holster holding a pistol and a baton. His badge is pinned over his left chest, opposite his nameplate. A small comb hidden inside his right sock completes the ensemble.

Informal Uniform

Cooper switched from dress blues to the casual uniform about five months ago, after Thompson and the city manager approved the change. Today, Cooper is the only Glendale officer who wears the comfortable attire--a privilege that has made him the target of good-natured ribbing from his colleagues and many merchants.

“Ever seen legs like that on a cop?” a captain asked a visitor recently, moments before reaching out and and yanking a hair from Cooper’s thigh.

“We love the shorts,” a secretary in a Honolulu Avenue art store said after Cooper greeted the shop employees on a morning round several weeks ago.

Cooper considers his friendly chatter with local merchants an important part of developing rapport within the community.

“A lot of policemen don’t know how to talk to people, they talk in code. And sometimes, when they’re through, the people feel a little bit smaller,” he said.

Between the quips and pleasantries on a recent day, Cooper’s eyes work constantly--peering through windows and sizing up unfamiliar faces. His hand-held police radio crackled an occasional interruption. Cooper listened long enough to make sure the police calls were not directed at him, then continued his conversation.

Relaxed Approach

“The idea is to look about but look relaxed,” he said. “I’ll walk a little bit, then I’ll just stop and look in back of me. Or I’ll stop in front of a store window and watch people through the reflection.”

When he walks into shops he is always alert, he said, “because you never know what you’re going to walk into.”

Last April, for example, Cooper was just steps away from walking into a shooting inside a Brand Boulevard Chinese restaurant. A woman was killed in the attack that police say arose from a soured business deal between the old and new owners. The incident illustrates the job’s perils.

“A certain amount of experience is necessary,” Sgt. Dean Durand, information officer for the Police Department said of the foot detail. “ . . . because the officer is functioning alone. We certainly wouldn’t put a brand-new officer in that capacity.

So far, however, skateboarding youngsters who roll down busy sidewalks are among the worst violators Cooper has encountered during his two years on the beat. And that’s the way he likes it.

“I don’t miss the action,” he said. “I’ve been there. Right now I’m just enjoying myself. I have a good time and that’s the biggest battle. You’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing--and I do.”