Chiefs Laud Report but Say It’s Not Applicable Locally

Although police chiefs and city officials in Southeast communities say the Christopher Commission’s biting critique of the Los Angeles police force is a must-read document and contains some worthwhile recommendations, most contend that little in the report applies to their departments.

“The problem is that L.A. is like another world,” Bell City Administrator John Bramble said. “We have a department of 66. You’re talking about people (in the LAPD) who have never met one another.”

In Bell, where 41 officers cover 3 square miles, Maywood, where 26 officers cover 1 square mile, and Bell Gardens, where 51 officers are responsible for just over 2 square miles, police chiefs say that when one of their officers does something wrong, they hear about it.

“I’ve been here 27 years with the department,” Maywood Chief Theodore Heidke said. “People know me. They know I go to X place for coffee every morning, and sometimes they are waiting for me there. They know they can come into my office anytime and see me. It’s very difficult for an officer to develop that kind of pattern (of misconduct) and not have it known by the brass.”

In Compton, where the majority of police officers are black and the population is almost entirely minority, officials say the “1950s” mentality ascribed to Los Angeles police in the Christopher report would never be tolerated in their city.

“A ‘50s mentality wouldn’t survive in a city like Compton because of the makeup of the community,” Police Chief Terry Ebert said. “The council and the people running the city . . . were on the short end of the ‘50s mentality for so long, they won’t go for it.”

That is not to say that the smaller departments are immune from the problems of brutality and racial and cultural clashes found on the Los Angeles police force by the Christopher Commission.

Heidke said that within the last two years he has had to discipline or fire at least four Maywood officers for use of excessive force. In Bell Gardens, about five officers have been disciplined for excessive use of force during the last five years.

Earlier this year, members of the Southland’s Samoan community marched around the Compton Police Station to protest the shooting deaths of two Samoan brothers at the hands of a Compton police officer who was called to their home to investigate a domestic dispute.

And Huntington Park Police Chief Patrick M. Connolly said at least three officers have been fired or resigned under pressure for excessive use of force since he was hired in 1988 to restore order to the 67-officer department.

Some Southeast departments already have adopted at least some form of the Christopher report’s recommendations. The Bell Police Department, for example, tests officers for psychological problems, practices some community policing and rotates officers through various assignments.

“We are way ahead of the (Los Angeles) commission in terms of rules and regulations,” said Bramble, the Bell city administrator.

Still, several officials said their departments simply don’t have the money to fully embrace such programs as community policing and cultural awareness testing.

“Community policing is a great idea, but who can afford it?” Heidke asked.

Huntington Park Chief Connolly also wasn’t very impressed with the Christopher report’s suggestion that local police chiefs be allowed to serve no more than 10 years.

“I don’t know how you can cap anything like that,” said Connolly, who took over a department that had been troubled by brutality allegations in the mid ‘80s.

Connolly said he laid down the law to his rank and file shortly after his arrival, and he hasn’t changed his policy in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating in Los Angeles--which prompted the Christopher review.

“I let everybody know that we wouldn’t cover up anything, that everything would be investigated,” Connolly said. “And that if you did something, you’d pay the price.”

Compton Police Chief Ebert likewise said his is not a city that looks with awe on the kind of aggressive street cops personified on television and in movies. On the contrary, he said, the city has deliberately tailored its psychological tests to weed out that type of individual.

What Compton wants, Ebert said, is police officers who can relate to people well, can relate to an ethnically diverse community and can deal with the city’s high crime rate and not slip into a “siege mentality.”

In response to the Samoan shooting--which remains under investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney--the city manager’s staff created an ad hoc human relations discussion group of Samoan leaders and city staff. Ebert attends the meetings.

Ebert has been at the helm of the department for only a year, but he has moved the department into a “community-based policing” mode, partly in response to the City Council’s demands for more officers on the street.

Under Ebert, the department was reorganized, beefing up patrols on the street but thinning the ranks of commanders. Even detectives and high-ranking officers, including the chief himself, have been spending one day a month in uniform on street patrol. Ebert recently issued an order that it now be two days a month.

Staff writers Tina Griego, Michele Fuetsch and Richard Holguin contributed to this story.