Different Neighborhoods, Differing Views on Police Abuse : Van Nuys: Residents of mostly white, middle-class Tyrone Avenue support police, but aren’t completely forgiving.

When local gang members swept up Tyrone Avenue in Van Nuys one day, scrawling their graffiti on the redwood fence around Vance Wells’ yard, a Neighborhood Watch lady up the street called police, who sent out out a civilian volunteer to help paint over the vandalism.

The woman living across from Wells knows the desk sergeant by name from the time she saw a burglar and the Van Nuys Division sent out three cars and a helicopter, searching for three hours before they nabbed him.

“I love the police,” she said. “Zsa Zsa slapped that officer. I would have kissed him.”

When it comes to the Los Angeles Police Department, what’s most important to people along Tyrone Avenue--a mostly white, middle-class area in the heart of the San Fernando Valley--is that it takes care of local problems: the gangs, the “illegal immigrants” who gather at a street corner late at night, the break-in artists looking for jewelry.

So the people here try to be understanding when they read about racist messages sent over police computers--”Guys say things,” one noted--and they don’t automatically blame the police chief for the crimes of “a few.”

Still, they’re not totally forgiving these days. Even though they’ve had good experiences with police, they’re listening carefully to others--usually not white--who tell of being hassled. And after Rodney G. King and the Christopher Commission, most accept police abuse as a fact.

“I know people personally who were harassed,” said Wells, the man with the redwood fence. A 49-year-old postal employee, he works with “Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, Indians,” and they’ve been telling him stories.

Some told how “they were stopped (by police)--their car was not washed and they happen to be Mexican. . . . (They were) yanked out,” he said. “I know I drive a messy car and I haven’t been stopped. I find that unacceptable.”

So while he appreciates the help with his graffiti, Wells says of the police: “They need to be reminded every once in a while what their responsibilities are.”

This is a transitional neighborhood. Many of the homes are the old cinder-block bungalows built throughout the Valley after World War II, perhaps a couple of rooms added on over the years. Rosebushes are in bloom all about, neatly trimmed, and there still are a few orange trees around.

But apartments have been built on some lots and a growing Latino presence has prompted tensions. The most common graffiti is “Barrio Brats” and “BVN,” for “Body of Van Nuys.”

Bill Newcomb, 72, has an American flag in front of his home, a stone’s throw from Wells’ place.

“I like to have policemen close by,” he said--they often drive by on Tyrone, coming and going from the nearby county courthouse complex.

Newcomb doesn’t approve of the police computer messages. But the retired engineer is not shocked by them.

“Human beings,” he said with a shrug. “I worked with human beings at Lockheed. . . . A lot of people are anti-everything.”

Walking her dog down the street, Alice Kelly is understanding also--but less forgiving.

A resident of the neighborhood for 26 years, she’ll wave at cops who drive by. She only wishes they’d do something about the torn sofa that’s been sitting beside the street for a month.

Under the “community policing” approach suggested by the Christopher Commission, that’s the type of problem officers would be encouraged to deal with--good public relations. But the subtle details of the commission’s work are not what people are talking about: it’s those messages and Daryl F. Gates.

“I think he’s also a victim. He couldn’t know everything going on,” Kelly said. “But, as Mr. Truman said, ‘The buck stops here.’ ”

She finds it disturbing that “no one could say to Gates, “You’re fired.”

The computer messages disturbed Adriano Reis. “We foreign people, we don’t appreciate that too much,” he said.

A 39-year-old mechanical technician, he moved here from Brazil 12 years ago. He recalled how his sister once tried to report an accident to police, but had an officer hang up on her, apparently because he couldn’t understand her accent.

Not long ago, Reis was awakened in the middle of the night by an intruder at the back door. He chased the man, who “ran to his car and sped off, spinning the wheels.”

Reis didn’t call police--he couldn’t give a description of the man, he said. Instead, he went out and bought a shotgun, keeping it by his bed.

However, the lady up the block dutifully reported it--the same woman who wanted to kiss the officers after they helped her catch the burglar near her home. Another time, a Police Department lieutenant helped her with a “psycho” who kept squirting her with his garden hose.

Along Tyrone Avenue, she is the one person whose faith in the Police Department has not been shaken in the least.

“They’re making a hero out of Rodney King. They’re making a villain out of Chief Gates,” she said.

“Look at the graffiti,” she continued, pointing at a nearby whitewashed fence.

“There are 100,000 gang members in this city and 120,000 other weirdos, crooks and burglars--and only 8,300 policemen. What are they supposed to do? Wine ‘em and dine ‘em?”