Other Police Forces Dismiss L.A. Study : Discipline: Civil rights groups say suburban police need to improve. But police officials generally believe that their supervision is tighter and discipline swifter than in the LAPD.

Most San Gabriel Valley police officials have greeted the Christopher Commission’s harsh critique of the Los Angeles Police Department with a collective shrug, contending suburban officers have sidestepped many of the pitfalls ensnaring their big city counterparts.

But local civil rights leaders and community activists insist that the charges of abuse chronicled this month in the blue-ribbon commission’s report could have been levied just as easily against any of the San Gabriel Valley’s 20 police agencies.

Although they believe that some departments are less prone to the misdeeds alleged about the LAPD, critics said it is foolish to believe local departments could not benefit from the same house-cleaning being urged for police in the megalopolis to the west.

“It’s not just in the LAPD; it’s everywhere,” said Arcadia attorney Thomas J. White, a retired Los Angeles police sergeant who now specializes in brutality cases against officers. “It’s all part of the mentality that, in our war against crime, the ends justify the means.”

Police chiefs from Pasadena to Pomona conceded their departments are not immune to the troubles of excessive force, racial slurs and the silent code among officers not to report each others’ misdeeds, which were detailed in the commission’s unprecedented review.

A sampling of major San Gabriel Valley city police forces showed that Pasadena received 24 citizen complaints of officer misconduct in 1990, seven of which were subsequently sustained by the Police Department. During the same time period, the city was hit with 17 legal claims alleging excessive force.

El Monte received 12 citizen complaints against its police last year, seven of which were sustained. Five excessive force legal claims were filed.

And 22 citizen complaints were lodged against West Covina police. Two of them were sustained. The city also was the target of 10 excessive force claims.

But officials generally maintained that supervision in their departments is tighter and discipline swifter than in the LAPD; that it is far easier to root out rogues from squads numbering up to a couple hundred officers than it would be from a force of 8,300.

“Even though we’re the same species as the LAPD, we’re a very different animal,” said Pasadena’s new police chief, Jerry Oliver, who began overseeing the department’s 220 officers last month.

As a result, most police officials said the recommendations made by the Christopher Commission are either already in place or irrelevant to smaller departments.

Last Monday in Azusa, for instance, Chief Byron Nelson announced a new policy under which he will personally review all citizens’ complaints as soon as they are filed. A special form for making grievances also has been printed and will be available in the police station and other city offices.

Nelson, however, noted that he began preparing the policy last December--three months before the videotaped beating of an Altadena motorist by LAPD officers led to the Christopher Commission’s investigation.

“The problems facing the city of Los Angeles are not necessarily unique to the city of Los Angeles,” Nelson said. “But I think we have a better handle on what our people are doing . . . and we have a tendency to deal with them a little faster.”

Similarly, El Monte Chief Wayne Clayton said he recently started showing a training film entitled, “Be Nice,” to his officers at morning briefings. But he, too, said he ordered it a month before anyone had even heard of motorist Rodney G. King.

“The LAPD is so big . . . but in a small city, things just don’t go by unnoticed,” Clayton said. “Not when anyone can pick up the phone and call the mayor any moment of the day.”

As for the commission’s recommendation that a 10-year cap be placed on the time that any one person can serve as chief, local officials were nearly unanimous in their opposition.

“As it is, most of us live from council meeting to council meeting,” said Pomona Chief Lloyd Wood, because most local chiefs serve at the pleasure of their city councils.

Minority leaders, however, said they saw little evidence that San Gabriel Valley departments had successfully purged their ranks of racist or overzealous officers.

In Pomona, NAACP chapter President Harold Webb said he has been hearing complaints about some of the same officers for more than five years. Although he has had frequent meetings with police officials and other community leaders over that time, he contended that no action has been taken.

“I don’t see them weeding these people out,” Webb said. “I know and the people of this community know that the problems are still there.”

Community activist Michael Zinzun, who lost an eye in a scuffle with Pasadena officers, also challenged the notion that local police somehow police themselves better.

“They’re talking as if some of these things don’t happen,” Zinzun said. “It’s systemic.”

But Baldwin Park Police Chief Carmine Lanza disagreed. A Los Angeles patrol officer for two years before going to Baldwin Park in 1971, Lanza was interviewed by Christopher Commission investigators several weeks ago regarding his feelings about the LAPD.

“They are a class organization, but they are entrenched in old traditions and beliefs,” he said. “I think smaller police departments . . . do a better job of keeping up with the times.”