Argentina Lauds Police Official’s Charity Work

Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker was honored by the government of Argentina on Monday for his charity work on behalf of children needing organ transplants.

Kroeker, the highest-ranking Los Angeles Police Department officer in the San Fernando Valley and a candidate for police chief, founded the World Children’s Transplant Fund. The nonprofit group works to establish juvenile transplant centers outside the United States. Its pilot project, a clinic opened last year at the Hospital Italiano in Buenos Aires, was the first children’s transplant facility in that country, according to the fund’s executive director, Nichelle Lyons. It has been the site of 17 transplants so far this year, she said.

The group also takes credit for opening transplant centers in Costa Rica and the Soviet Union, and is working on others in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, Lyons said. The fund operates by providing equipment to existing hospitals and arranging for local doctors to receive transplant training.

Juan Sola, the Argentine consul general, said of Kroeker: “I have no idea of his activities as a policeman. I only know him as a benefactor and he’s been exemplary.”

“There are so few people that pay attention to South American problems that when you find one, you are quite surprised,” Sola continued before the ceremony at the consulate to honor the deputy chief. “This man is a man of extraordinary humanity.”

Kroeker was presented with an inscribed sterling-silver tray during the ceremony, which was followed by a champagne toast, Sola said.