New Oxnard Chief Outlines Plans : Police: Harold Hurtt cites neighborhood relations, gangs and fiscal restraint in his first public appearance.

Oxnard’s next police chief said Monday that he wants to mend neighborhood fences, fight gangs and keep a tight budget when he takes over July 6 from retiring Chief Robert P. Owens.

In his first public appearance in Oxnard, Chief-designate Harold Hurtt said he wants to see the city’s police force work more closely with residents, but he plans no immediate changes.

“You will not see a situation where Harold Hurtt is bringing policy and programs from Phoenix to Oxnard,” said Hurtt, executive assistant chief of the Phoenix Police Department, where he has served for 24 years. “I believe in a lot of input.

“I think in every organization you can look at other ways of doing things, such as the use of civilians in some capacity and bringing together employees and asking them what to do,” Hurtt said.

As the first black police chief of Oxnard, the city with Ventura County’s largest population and worst crime rate, Hurtt, 45, will step into a highly visible office. In Phoenix, he was all but overshadowed by the controversial former chief, Ruben Ortega.

Under Ortega, Hurtt helped form and served on a civilian review panel for police brutality charges. Minority leaders pushed for the panel after Phoenix officers shot three minority residents in separate incidents in 1984, killing a black man and a Latino and crippling another black man. Departmental investigators ruled that the shootings were justified.

The civilian panel studied numerous other cases, leading to discipline against other officers--and improved relations with the minority community, Phoenix attorney Gary Peter Klahr said.

Hurtt’s work on the panel won him great respect, Klahr said.

“Some feel he was used by Ortega as a buffer with the minority community,” said Klahr, a former Phoenix city councilman who served with Hurtt on the panel. “But Hurtt has proven to be extremely fair and has an absolutely superb reputation.”

“It was a very tough time for the whole department,” said Mike Petchel, president of the Phoenix police union. “I think Harold helped maintain that community relations balance and was a real pivotal person in our department in maintaining some sense of stability.”

The panel, he said, “helped create a change in how we review our use of force.”

Hurtt said Monday that he plans to review the Oxnard department’s policy on the use of force. The goal is “to make sure it’s a fair one and that the community is protected from all liabilities,” Hurtt said.

Hurtt also outlined ideas for handling two of Oxnard’s more visible and persistent police problems--gang violence and Sunday night cruising on Saviers Road.

Hurtt said police should work more closely with community organizations and families of gang members to turn the youths away from violence.

That partnership should “ensure that those that deserve to be locked up are handled in that manner and those that need to be treated are treated appropriately,” he said.

Police work often involves social work, he said.

“We’re probably the only social services agency that’s out there 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “We cannot forget our social responsibility to the community.”

As for the lines of noisy cars joy-riding on Saviers Road, Hurtt said Phoenix police had dealt with similar problems.

Hurtt said he ordered Central Avenue in Phoenix to be blockaded to discourage cruising, and said the city passed noise ordinances prohibiting the use of “boom box” car stereos--tactics that dramatically reduced the problem, he said.

But Hurtt said that while these tactics worked in Phoenix, he will discuss all of Oxnard’s issues fully with his staff before making any changes in policy.

“You cannot approach a city or a county with a cookie-cutter approach for providing police services,” he said.

Hurtt said he will spend the next few days house hunting in Oxnard with his wife, Carol Hurtt. She is a former head of the juvenile division of the Arizona Department of Corrections and now works as a juvenile-affairs consultant. Appearing with her husband Monday, she said she hopes to find similar work in Oxnard.

Carol Hurtt said her husband became a police officer in Phoenix in the late 1960s because he was fresh out of the military and needed a job. Then he realized that “he loved it, and he stayed with the organization,” she said.