RIOT AFTERMATH : Keeping the Peace Was Community Effort : Police: Officials say officers stayed cool. Older civilians calmed youths, heading off widespread unrest.

Around City Hall they call it “the Pasadena Way,” the Police Department’s method of policing with a personal touch, which officials like to contrast with what they say is more of a paramilitary Los Angeles way.

The personal touch was evident last week on the streets of the city, officials said, as neighborhood hotheads were allowed to vent their rage verbally, and bands of would-be looters were often gently headed off at the pass.

“The police maintained a level of cordiality,” said City Councilman Isaac Richard, one of the Police Department’s most persistent critics. “Some of the arrests I witnessed were almost friendly.”

Although police made 186 arrests during the disturbances--on charges ranging from disturbing the peace to arson--the city escaped the kind of widespread arson and looting that devastated large areas of Los Angeles.

This is Rodney G. King territory, community leaders say, and emotions were running high last week. King lives in nearby Altadena, and he went to school at Pasadena’s Muir High School.

“People identify this as Rodney King’s hometown, and they feel quite strongly about (the not guilty verdicts in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating King),” said Tony Henry, executive secretary of the American Friends Services Committee office in Northwest Pasadena.

Police Chief Bill Betts, from neighboring Sierra Madre, said he had kept a watchful eye on the disorders in Pasadena and formed the opinion that the police were extraordinarily well-prepared.

“They did a very good job,” Betts said. “They were out there handling things as they occurred. There wasn’t a lot of publicity about what they were doing, but they were out there doing the job.”

Pasadena Police Chief Jerry Oliver said it took a community effort to cool the situation. Oliver placed his department on tactical alert less than an hour after the April 29 verdict, canceling leaves and assigning plainclothes officers to the streets in uniforms.

As officers tried to prevent looting, citizens with ties to the city’s large black enclave in Northwest Pasadena were ushered past police lines and encouraged to address angry teen-agers, often calming tense situations, Oliver said.

“The key was talking to young people and being able to look directly into their eyes,” said Prentice Deadrick, the city’s manager of Northwest programs, who participated in the community patrols. “We were coming at them at their level, and they felt comfortable talking to us.”

Meanwhile, a dozen social services with storefront offices kept their doors open long into the night last week, and the city-owned cable television station, KPAS-Channel 55, stayed on the air until 11 p.m. or midnight.

Hundreds called the station’s hot line, said public affairs director Ann Erman, asking for information or advice. “They wanted to know if they were safe in their homes,” Erdman said, “or where they could buy baby formula.”

Tim Rhambo, who works for a drug and alcohol abuse program in Pasadena, was on the streets. “We tried our best to keep things quiet, and they listened to us,” said Rhambo, who says he has a “doctorate in street life.”

“They listened to us,” he added. “We all grew up together.”

But Rhambo offered a dissenting voice on police officers’ personal touch. He contended that officers shadowing youths in Old Town Pasadena on the night of the verdict provoked anger among the youths and prompted them to vandalize some stores.

Cheryl Hubbard, a Northwest resident who has long monitored police activity in her neighborhood, toured the area in her 1967 Chevrolet station wagon, buttonholing youngsters. She and some neighbors set up patrols without any advance planning, she said.

“It was a spontaneous reaction,” she said. “It was a situation we had to take care of, and we didn’t have time to plan anything.”

At one point, she found herself amid an angry crowd following a shootout between youths and the police on North Los Robles Avenue late Saturday.

“I just kind of talked to one of the brothers and calmed him down,” Hubbard said. “He was letting everybody know how he felt. It was a matter of taking him off to the side and letting him vent his frustrations in a more private place.”

Though the city got through this crisis with relative ease, many officials worry that conditions still exist that might provoke another one. “The teapot still has heat under it,” Deadrick said. “There’s a long hot summer coming.”