Videos Try to Bridge a Wide Cultural Gap : Race relations: The two productions are aimed at instilling police with feelings of respect and sensitivity when dealing with Latino and Southeast Asian residents.

One young Latino chases another through a parking lot and slams him against the trunk of a car.

“Chill out! Chill out!” the youth under attack pleads. But the fight goes on and both combatants fall to the ground.

“Cut!” the director barks, and the two men break apart and smile. An appreciative audience of extras and crew applauds.

Though the seconds-long fight scene took hours to produce, it will not find its way into a Hollywood movie or an episode of MacGyver.

Instead, it will become part of a training video for police officers in Orange County. The fight between the two young men--which in the film occurs at a family party--sets up the entrance of two police officers who demonstrate how to close down the rowdy affair without inciting the guests to more violence.

Through such examples, the Orange County Human Relations Commission and Santa Ana Police Department--which co-produced the film--hope to show police officers that a better understanding of culturally and ethnically sensitive situations can make their jobs easier and boost their image in minority communities.

One of the videos is aimed at raising police officers’ awareness of Latino culture and another will deal with the Vietnamese community.

Editing has begun on the Latino video, which recently finished shooting with a mix of professional and amateur actors at locales around Orange County--from a Santa Ana burger stand to the surf and sands at Huntington Beach.

The script for the video, to be called “Common Ground,” was written by Jose Cruz Gonzalez of the Hispanic Playwrights Project at South Coast Repertory. One of its main points is that Latinos, like police officers, place a high degree of importance on being treated with respect.

The script calls for an “Adam-12” type format in which a pair of actors playing police officers are seen in re-enactments of actual incidents. The incidents were chosen to show how recognition of cultural differences can defuse potential confrontations and improve the image of police in the Latino community.

In one scene, for instance, the senior officer agrees to honor the request of a suspected wife-beater who wants to be handcuffed outside his house and out of sight of his children.

“It doesn’t hurt to take a minute and explain what we’re doing. Besides, maybe next time his kids see one of us they won’t be afraid,” the actor/officer explains to his partner.

In the party scene, officers respond to a complaint about noise at a quinceanera , a traditional Mexican-debut celebration marking a girl’s 15th birthday.

Aware that a fight between two youths has just occurred outside, the officers take the girl’s father out of earshot from the others and explain that the party is out of control. They courteously ask him to tell everyone to go home.

“Respect,” the officer later tells his partner. “That’s all it takes.”

The project has received an outpouring of support and donations from Latino groups and businesses, police departments and corporate donors, according to Vicki Plevin, who is co-producing the videos for the Human Relations Commission.

Volunteer Extras

Scores of extras from Orange County community groups like Manos Unidas, Spanish for “hands united,” dressed up for the crowd and ballroom scenes.

Jay Palomino of Westminster, vice president of Manos Unidas, said the group’s members felt their participation was important to help make officers more aware of cultural differences. In times past, “they didn’t have the ethnic sensitivity they should have,” he said.

One incident that outraged Westminster’s Latino community was the July, 1988, shooting of 18-year-old Frank Martinez in his back yard during a birthday celebration for his mother. Police maintained that Martinez and an angry mob attacked three officers who were at the home to question Martinez’s brother about a neighborhood gang incident. Martinez’s family, however, has claimed that police shot the unarmed youth as he tried to rise from the ground and flee.

The Orange County Grand Jury decided not to indict any of the officers involved in the shooting, but the family has filed a $110-million lawsuit against the Westminster Police Department, alleging violations of civil rights.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, said the video project was approved in hopes of improving understanding between police and Latinos.

“It is very desirable among (police) departments to build better relationships in the Hispanic community,” Kennedy said.

Santa Ana Police Officer Kevin Brown served as technical adviser on the project, making sure that the two actors looked, talked and appeared like real officers. Among other things, he made sure that they carried their flashlights in their left hands in case they needed to reach for their guns in a hurry. And he showed them how to carry billy clubs on their laps in a patrol car.

Plevin said the project is also receiving technical help from police departments in Westminster, Anaheim, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, San Clemente and Fullerton, and from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The videos, which are being produced on a $10,000 budget, are intended primarily to be shown to police officers at roll calls before they head out on daily patrol, Plevin said. The project has received donations, both monetary and in-kind, valued at thousands of dollars more.