Crime and Chaos--LAPD Officer Finds Both in Visit to Leningrad

The Russian vagrant rose shakily from the cell’s wooden bench and stared up in bleary disbelief at the tall figure in an unfamiliar midnight blue uniform and shiny badge.

“Hi there, how you doing today?” the apparition asked in friendly English. “Lost your way home?”

“He’s a bum,” Kasimir Zhukovsky, deputy chief of Leningrad’s 28th Precinct, explained in Russian as the scruffy man continued to stare silently at Sgt. Greg Braun of the Los Angeles Police Department. “Do you have them, too?”

“Oh, yes,” Braun replied.

Beggars, false alarms, fleeing suspects and piles of paperwork--Braun has found much that is familiar during the last two weeks as he and 11 other California police officers visited their counterparts in the Soviet Union in a groundbreaking exchange.

But he also entered a strange, topsy-turvy world in which police must cope with laws that change daily, spiraling crime, an economic crisis that swallows their salaries and a long-suffering public that is growing ever more desperate.

Waiting for Braun to arrive at the Kuibyshevsky district station to begin another day of show-and-tell last week, Junior Lt. Artur Ustymenko wondered aloud how he could possibly explain to an American some of the crimes and problems his colleagues encounter.

There are, for example, the women at the Krupskaya Candy Factory who hide up to 15 pounds of hard-to-get chocolate under their clothes as they leave work; when caught they flee, shedding candy bars and sometimes clothing.

Or, as Inspector Alexander Semyonov noted, there is the current political chaos over which laws apply where. “We’re different from American police, in that we can go to a big bank and show our badge and they’ll still say, ‘We won’t let you in,’ ” he explained.

Then there are the personnel problems. “Salary, housing problems, professional training and technical equipment--it’s poverty, what we have,” Ustymenko said. “The guys work on pure enthusiasm. It would be good for your guys to come and see how we work even in such conditions.”

Observing traffic control, riding with officers who respond to burglar alarms, inspecting a typical station and sitting in at roll call for the night shift, Braun remained resolutely nonjudgmental.

“There’s no comparison” to police work back home, he said. “I wanted to make comparisons and I think that’s really apples and oranges because of the totally different cultures.”

Still, there were times when he was dismayed--such as when the 28th Precinct staff explained that they had no computer and could only check on possibly stolen cars while on patrol by telephoning headquarters.

Then there was the confusion about the typically Soviet crime of “speculation.”

“If you buy a bottle of vodka for 10 rubles and you don’t want it, or somebody says, ‘I’ll give you 15 rubles for it,’ in America that’s business,” Braun said. “Well, in this country it’s a major crime. That’s the most impressive thing. And they have to prepare for the future, that it’s not going to be a crime anymore.”

Braun was also struck by the casual attitude that police in this relatively lightly armed society have toward their guns. They wear them under their untucked shirts in a style that makes the weapons harder to grab in an emergency. He also was disconcerted watching Soviet traffic police. He saw one officer pull over a car and walk toward it in such a way that, “if you wanted to take this guy out, he’s gone, he’s history,” he said.

For his Soviet hosts, Braun brought lots of talk about Los Angeles police techniques. He also carried goodies. He passed out freezer bags full of pens, socks, soap and pins--popular presents among shortage-plagued Soviet consumers--as well as notebooks with the Miranda rights printed on the back and Los Angeles Police Department T-shirts announcing “I support Chief Gates.”

Kuibyshevsky district chief Albert Vorontsov, Braun’s host who recently visited Los Angeles as part of the current exchange, explained to four dozen police at evening roll call that the scandal concerning the beating of motorist Rodney G. King had largely been resolved. “Those who used clubs went beyond their authority but those who only kicked him are OK,” Vorontsov explained to the puzzled laughter of his men.

At roll call, Braun was peppered with questions about how American police live, what they earn and whether they have problems getting cars and equipment. The annual salary Braun mentioned, about $32,000 before taxes ($2,666 monthly), brought blank looks to the Soviets, who earn about 450 rubles a month, anywhere from $16 to $810 a month, depending on the exchange rate used.

The most plaintive question came from a young blond patrolman.

“Is your visit just for curiosity’s sake or are there plans to help the Leningrad police?” he asked.

“If you ask,” Braun, 44, said politely.

Vorontsov had already made a small hint at possible aid when he explained to Braun that unlike in the United States, where all police have their own sets of handcuffs, Soviet officers share them, signing them out when needed. “We don’t have enough for everyone but we hope you’ll send us some,” he joked.

Sporting the sleek dark uniform that made the Soviet gray-blue look pale and lumpy by comparison, Braun took on an unaccustomed aura of celebrity. At one point, Officer Alexander Kudryavtsev turned around to him in a patrol car and asked for his autograph.

“He is the first American policeman I’ve ever met,” he said.

Braun laughed, shrugged and signed.