Deputy Chief Suggests a Quarterly Poll of Residents’ Views of Police

The head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Bureau told a special panel on police reforms Thursday that he wants to regularly poll San Fernando Valley residents to measure their attitudes about his officers and to help identify policing priorities.

“I want to be able to track public attitudes just like the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker added in an interview after testifying before the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Independent Police Commission Report.

In his testimony, Kroeker also briefed the panel on a list of “community-based policing” programs he has launched, or plans to launch, in the Valley Bureau that stress citizen involvement in the prevention and fighting of crime.

Kroeker’s reform initiatives won the praise of Councilman Marvin Braude, chairman of the five-member Ad Hoc Committee. The panel was set up to review programs proposed by the Christopher Commission to reform the Police Department in the wake of the March 3 beating of motorist Rodney G. King by police, which was captured on videotape.

“It’s very heartening to hear that so much is going on,” Braude told the deputy chief. The programs in the Valley reveal “a great deal of citizen participation and partnership,” he added. “We’re well on our way to exploring community-based policing in very real ways.”

The Christopher Commission report had recommended that the Police Department implement “community-based policing” programs as an important step toward establishing the department’s credibility with the community.

Kroeker has been identified with this reform movement since being named to head the Valley Bureau three days after the King episode. He was told by Chief Daryl F. Gates to repair the bureau’s shattered morale and its ties to the community in the wake of the King beating, which involved Foothill Division officers.

“I want to bring the police and community into a zone called ‘we,’ ” Kroeker told the panel.

One program in the wings is a quarterly public opinion survey of Valley residents done with the help of Cal State Northridge faculty, Kroeker told the panel. There’s already been a “favorable preliminary response” from CSUN officials about helping to craft an opinion poll for the police, he said.

Kroeker also disclosed that the bureau’s Jeopardy anti-gang program, now a pilot project in the Foothill Division and viewed as part of the community-based policing concept, will be expanded throughout the Valley by Jan. 1 and will involve 10 officers. The program identifies high-risk youths and attempts to steer them away from gang involvement.

In addition, Kroeker told the committee of the bureau’s decision last May to deploy its 31 senior lead officers solely on community-based policing duties, such as walking beats and organizing Neighborhood Watch programs, and the establishment of an outreach program for Spanish-speaking residents.

Next month, the department will also name 335 community leaders, to be known as police community representatives, to serve as liaisons between the Police Department and the community, Kroeker added. One liaison will be named for each crime-reporting district in the Valley.

Meanwhile, Officer Stephanie Tisdale, assigned to the Valley Bureau, testified on the benefits of aggressive community-based policing. After developing a rapport with residents of a Canoga Park neighborhood and using them as her “eyes and ears,” Tisdale said she was able to rid the area of rock-cocaine dealers.

Margaret Whittington, a Sylmar community activist, told the panel her experience with community-based policing has been positive.

But she said she believes that a wide range of problems, including illegal trash dumping, abandoned cars and graffiti removal, should be handled by civilian personnel. Using the Police Department’s senior lead officers for such jobs, she said, is a misuse of police resources.