New Latino Group Steps Up Campaign for Police Reform : Politics: Leaders say Charter Amendment F backers have promised funds for an all-out effort on the Eastside.

Latino leaders who complained that their community was being overlooked in the campaign to reform the Los Angeles Police Department said Wednesday they have now extracted a promise of financial support for an all-out effort to win votes in neighborhoods east of downtown Los Angeles.

The newly formed Latinos for Charter Amendment F launched its campaign at a downtown news conference attended by 20 Latino activists who support the proposal to give City Hall more control over the LAPD. The group’s leader, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, said funding for Spanish-language radio advertisements and bilingual literature emerged after several meetings over the last week with Citizens for Law Enforcement and Reform (CLEAR) officials.

“We had to push them,” Molina said. “But we now have a commitment for a full-time staff worker, 10,000 pieces of bilingual campaign literature and $12,000 for radio spots.

“Our message to Eastside communities will be that ‘ Su voto es su voce ‘ (your vote is your voice),” Molina said. “Charter Amendment F moves us toward a new partnership with the Police Department that involves us, and enables us to guide efforts to cut down crime in the streets, eliminate the continuing gang problem and make our neighborhoods safer.”

That message is markedly different from one being used by the CLEAR campaign in South-Central Los Angeles. There, residents are being told that the charter amendment will bring an end to the kind of show of force captured in the videotaped police beating of Rodney G. King.

But Molina pointed out that such a pitch could prove ineffective in the Latino community, which includes many residents who “have traditionally supported law enforcement, but do not want to be frightened or intimidated by it.”

At stake is a Latino community that makes up about 40% of the city’s population and, according to UCLA demographer Leo Estrada, an estimated 11% of the city’s 1.3 million registered voters--a potential swing vote in the June 2 election.

“Our strategy is to target neighborhoods in El Sereno, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and Highland Park,” said Gloria Romero, a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission’s Hispanic Advisory Council and campaign coordinator for Latinos for Charter Amendment F.

“We are developing a list of Eastside community leaders, churches and organizations for our mailing list, putting together a speakers bureau and lining up volunteers to man the phone bank,” added Romero. “There would have been no way possible to do this without the help of the CLEAR campaign.”

At a strategy meeting with Latino leaders a week ago, CLEAR officials said they had raised $375,000 for a campaign that has concentrated its efforts in the San Fernando Valley and South-Central Los Angeles. CLEAR officials could not say on Wednesday how much money would be earmarked in the weeks ahead for Latino get-out-the-vote efforts.

The Latino coalition includes influential organizations such as the 90,000-member United Neighborhoods Organization and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and a host of community leaders including civil rights attorney Samuel Paz and activist Aurora Castillo--all of whom believe the measure would make the 8,300-member Police Department and its chief more accountable to the people they serve.

Other Latino organizations are lining up against the measure, which would limit a police chief to two five-year terms, and would give City Hall officials greater say in hiring and firing a chief.

La Ley, a 1,000-member organization of Latino police officers, is trying to persuade business groups and block clubs to donate funds and resources to defeat the measure that the group believes would politicize the department. La Ley members have also vowed to man phone banks and distribute mailers in the community during their off-duty hours.

Other groups, such as the 1,000-member Latin Business Assn. and NEWS for America, a recently-formed Mexican-American organization, remain uncommitted despite heavy lobbying from both sides.