Oxnard Police Chief Finalists Chosen : Law enforcement: A Phoenix department official is reportedly No. 1. He would be the first black in the post.

Oxnard officials have narrowed the search for a new police chief to three candidates, topping the list with a popular, influential black assistant chief from Phoenix, police sources said Thursday.

Phoenix Executive Assistant Chief Harold Hurtt, 45, could become Oxnard’s first black police chief, said one source, a high-ranking police official who asked not to be identified. The official confirmed published reports that Hurtt is the city’s top choice to replace retiring chief Robert P. Owens.

Several Oxnard police officials have spent time in the past two months talking with Hurtt, who is “very impressive,” the source said.

“He’s got a lot of personal charm and gives the basic impression he cares about you,” he said. Hurtt “has done his homework. He knows the area, he knows the community, he knows the department, he knows its reputation. He’s been very thorough.”

The recruiting firm that helped narrow the original field of 121 applicants is now doing background checks on the three candidates for the job of overseeing police in a city with the largest population and highest crime rate in Ventura County.

The checks and psychological exams will help in the final choice of a new chief, to be made by City Manager Vernon Hazen some time before Owens retires next month.

Hurtt has declined to talk to a Phoenix newspaper about Oxnard’s interest in him.

But officials there confirmed that he is well-liked and has helped change the Phoenix department for the better.

Hurtt is a 24-year veteran of the Phoenix force, having worked his way up from patrol officer in 1968 to his current job as second in command of the 2,000-member police force, said Sgt. Kevin Robinson, a Phoenix police spokesman.

“He’s served in all facets of the organization,” Robinson said Thursday.

Over the past two years, Hurtt has helped usher the department toward community-based policing--the same structure being implemented in the beleaguered Los Angeles Police Department and backed by Chief-designate Willie L. Williams.

Under Hurtt and the assistant chiefs who work for him, some Phoenix patrol officers have moved out of cruisers and onto bicycle or foot patrols, Robinson said.

“We’re getting back to basics,” he said. “We’re working hand in hand with people, trying to effect change to rebuild neighborhoods that need rebuilding. The emphasis is no longer on responding to the problem and putting someone in jail. The emphasis is on solving the problem.”

Hurtt’s selection came as the result of a $22,000 search by a Sacramento recruiting firm that the city of Oxnard hired to find Owens’ replacement.

The firm advertised the job throughout the western United States, then chose Hurtt and eight other candidates, including Oxnard Assistant Chief James Latimer, from among 121 applicants, Owens said.

Four interview panels made up of Oxnard city officials, police officials, community leaders and citizens then grilled the nine candidates separately in early May. The panels then came up with their three recommendations, in order of preference, Owens said.

Owens declined to name the three, but said the top choice is an Arizona police official, the second choice is a white San Diego-area official, and the third choice is a Latino official from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Hazen has said the names are being kept secret so the candidates’ current co-workers will not know that they are job hunting.

But that silence and the exclusion of Oxnard’s own Assistant Chief Latimer, who is black, from the finalists angered many critics in the city’s black community, who say Latimer’s 26 years on the force make him better qualified than any outsider.

“I think it’s great,” Pastor Broderick Huggins said of the fact that the top candidate is black. “But I think they’ve done Chief Latimer a disservice.”

“You tell a man to get his education. You tell a man to work with the system,” said Huggins, pastor of St. Paul’s Baptist Church, where Latimer is a deacon. “You tell a man to go through the process, and when it comes time to receive the carrot that you’ve been dangling before him for years, all of a sudden you snatch it away from him. What kind of justice is that? What kind of equity is that?”

Latimer seemed to accept the decision with good humor. “I was standing when I got the message, my knees didn’t buckle,” he said, chuckling.

“Initially, when you apply for a job you don’t get, you run through a disappointment phase,” Latimer said. “But my concern is that we do get the best, we make a smooth transition and just move forward.”

Owens said city officials appeared to be looking for someone who mirrors his management style.

“They don’t want to clone me,” said Owens, who retires June 12. “But they’re looking for a manager who demonstrates and commands respect from his employees, (and who’s) familiar with community-oriented policing. Someone who’s something of a risk taker, decisive and strong, and yet not so strong as to be bullheaded.”