Police to Seek Recruits at Gay Pride Event : Community relations: Officers from across the county will distribute information for the first time in the festival’s history.

Police officers from across the county will staff information booths and pursue recruits at the Orange County Gay & Lesbian Pride Celebration this weekend, the first time this has been done in the history of the festival, organizers said Monday.

In the wake of the recent flap over Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ stand on the issue, Orange County organizers say the local police representation marks an important step forward in relations between the gay community and local law enforcement.

At the same time, however, some local police chiefs have declined to participate in the event Saturday and Sunday at UC Irvine. And despite department denials, some gay organizers interpret this as a snub over “the nature of the event.”

“This is a turn of events where the (gay) community is finally being recognized by law enforcement as a substantial part of the community,” said Scott Liles, a board member of Orange County Cultural Pride, the festival’s sponsor.

“But when I get responses like, ‘We’re not interested,’ or ‘We just won’t be there,’ it sounds to me like (some police departments) are making absolutely no effort to communicate,” he added. “I think it’s due to the nature of the event, and that alarms me.”

Police responses were still pending as of Monday. But Liles said the departments in Buena Park, Cypress, Garden Grove, Laguna Beach and Placentia, as well as the California Highway Patrol, have all indicated that they would have officers at the festival to man booths, pass out general information on crime-fighting and community security and do some recruitment.

Liles said several other departments--including those in Anaheim, Irvine and Santa Ana as well as the Orange County Sheriff’s Department--have given their officers permission to appear at the festivals in uniform on a volunteer basis.

Police representation at community events became a publicized and sensitive issue in the Southland earlier this month when L.A. Chief Gates banned off-duty, gay officers from wearing their uniforms while working at a recruitment booth at a Silver Lake street festival.

Because the neighborhood has a large homosexual population, some activists saw Gates’ move as a slap at gays. The Los Angeles Police Commission ultimately ordered the department to staff a recruitment booth, but some said the damage in relations was already done.

In Orange County, one police official said some departments--wary of a repeat of the Gates incident--were persuaded to “let their employees make up their own minds” about festival attendance when invitations went out in late July from festival organizers.

Festival organizers expect to set up a police booth, staffed from departments throughout the county with both gay and non-gay officers, to answer questions and pass out literature.

Liles said he hopes that the presence of local police may help to mend some wounds that may still be left from the first Gay Pride Celebration in 1989 in Santa Ana. Local police made about half a dozen arrests there and broke up a brawl between gay activists and fundamentalist Christians who had gathered to protest the festival.

“This is the first year we’ve done this,” organizer Liles said of the police booths. “I wanted to develop a better line of communication between the gay and lesbian community and the law enforcement community. And the timing is right for this year.”

Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil J. Purcell said his department has never had officers staff a gay event like this one before, but “I didn’t see any problem with it. . . . I see it basically as a PR thing.”

Purcell added that his department has already been doing outreach programs with the gay community in Laguna for years, and the festival offers a chance to expand that effort countywide.

Although Santa Ana police will not officially sponsor a booth, spokeswoman Maureen Haacker said the department has authorized a policy that for the first time will allow “anyone from our department (to) attend the event or any portion of it, as a representative of the department, in a non-paid status, in uniform.”

Among the participants will be Glen Swanson, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who said the Silver Lake festival marked his “coming out” as a gay officer.

Swanson said he was instructed by supervisors not to wear his uniform in Irvine, since he was not a part of the recruitment unit and would not be paid. But he said he will be answering questions and passing out literature, nonetheless.

“We’re sending a message to the gay community and the public at large that it is acceptable to be a gay police officer,” he said.

Nonetheless, several departments in Orange County have declined to take part in the festival, including those in Fullerton, Orange and Tustin, Liles said.

Liles said he perceives such responses as a reflection of community attitudes toward gays. But police officials interviewed Monday denied this, saying their decisions were based on budget priorities and the need to attend to local matters first.

“The reason we’re not going to participate is this is a media event, and we don’t participate in media events,” Orange Chief Merrill Duncan said. “I’m just going to pass on it. That’s all.”

And Fullerton Chief Phil Goehring said: “I don’t look at this as being an event that in all good conscience I could send an officer to attend. . . . I really have limited resources, and I don’t see a direct relationship for us. I don’t know as we see an interest for Fullerton.”