PLACENTIA : Police Chief Named to Succeed Fischer

Manuel Ortega, the police chief of Bell in Los Angeles County, will take the same post in Placentia next month, a move that will make him the only Latino in charge of a police department in Orange County.

But don’t look to Ortega to make that distinction. In fact, Ortega said that he sought assurances from Placentia city officials that he was chosen for his ability and qualifications, not his ethnic background.

“I would prefer to be known as Manuel Ortega, the Placentia chief of police, who happens to be Hispanic, rather than Manuel Ortega, Placentia’s Hispanic chief of police,” he said Tuesday.

Ortega, a policeman for 21 years in Orange County until he went to Bell, will replace former Chief Harold A. Fischer, who retired in June.

“Placentia is an ideal city,” Ortega said. “I had always thought that after spending 21 years in Orange County, I would be back. It’s like coming home.”

Placentia City Administrator Robert D’Amato described the new police chief as a “people person” with excellent administrative and technical skills.

Among Ortega’s plans are to expand police programs in Placentia schools and to work more closely with Placentia’s Chamber of Commerce to start programs with city businesses.

Ortega, who now lives in Yorba Linda, worked for the Garden Grove Police Department from 1967 to 1972. He moved to the Orange Police Department in 1972, where he worked for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant and serving as liaison to the city’s growing Latino community. In 1988, he became police chief of Bell, a city of about 34,000 facing serious problems with gangs and drugs.

It was, Ortega said, an eye-opening experience.

On Ortega’s first day, a 14-year-old boy fatally shot a passenger in a passing vehicle, thinking that the victim was a rival gang member. It turned out to have been a friend of the boy.

Sgt. Bill Talbott, a 17-year veteran of the Bell Police Department, said that Ortega brought stability to the department as the city struggled with financial problems.

“He kind of kept us on an even keel. He kind of added an air of stability when we really needed it. . . . He’s kind of a common-sense kind of individual.

When Ortega arrives Oct. 15, first on his agenda, he said, will be to meet with all of the 54 sworn officers and 15 civilian personnel in the department.