Community-Based Police Plan Offered : Reform: Pilot program in four stations would stress crime prevention over arrests.

Hoping to improve relations between the Los Angeles Police Department and the communities it serves, City Councilman Marvin Braude has authored a proposal for implementing a pilot “community-based policing program” at four stations across Los Angeles.

The proposal, which could go before the City Council on Dec. 3, requests that the Police Commission work with Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to devise strategies for emphasizing crime prevention over arrests and encouraging a working partnership between police officers and residents to solve problems.

“This is a fundamental shift in philosophy and policy within the Police Department,” said Braude, who has discussed the recommendations with Gates and police Commissioners Jesse Brewer and Stanley K. Sheinbaum.

The program would go into effect within six weeks of adoption by the council, said Braude, who based the proposal on recommendations from law enforcement experts who testified before his ad hoc committee on the Christopher Commission.

Key elements include focusing accountability on station captains, minimizing the creation of specialized units that could drain personnel resources and assigning officers to small neighborhoods for at least two years to ensure familiarity with residents, Braude said.

Under the proposal, status reports would be provided to the City Council on a quarterly basis, and the four stations would be compared to each other and to the department’s 14 other stations, he said.

The Police Commission and Gates would be responsible for selecting the stations to take part in the program, Braude said.

“I anticipate there will be a lot of fine tuning which will be done in part by Chief Gates, the Police Commission and the City Council,” he said. “But I expect that the fine tuning will be synchronized like an orchestra and we’ll all make beautiful music together.”

It may not be all that harmonious.

Ron Aguilar, a member of the 8,100-member Police Protective League’s board of directors, took strong exception to the recommendation that officers be assigned to a specific geographical location for as long as two years.

“We’re not opposed to community-based policing,” Aguilar said. “But we’d have major concerns with restricting an officer from advancement, transfer or just getting along with his personal life for two years.”

Beyond that, some law enforcement experts who testified before Braude’s ad hoc committee said it could cost millions of dollars and take up to 10 years to implement community-based policing efforts throughout the city.

Braude insisted that the thrust of his recommendations would only involve “using resources currently available within the department.”

Gates could not be reached for comment. However, Cmdr. Lawrence Fetters, assistant to the director of the department’s office of operations, said, “The chief is behind this 100%.

“Right now, there are bits and pieces of community-based policing all over the city. We need to make it more pervasive,” Fetters said.

Mayor Tom Bradley was out of the country and could not reached. His spokesman, Bill Chandler, generally supported the Braude proposal.

“As a former cop, the mayor knows how important it is to have officers stop using their patrol cars as barriers between police and the community,” Chandler said.

The Christopher Commission was formed after the March 3 police beating of motorist Rodney G. King.