Temple Station on the Mend : Problem Deputies Hurt Image, but New Captain Is Inspiring Confidence

A year ago, sheriff’s deputies assigned to the station in Temple City were in the media spotlight--for thefts, beatings, shootings and other alleged on-duty misconduct in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.

Three former deputies who worked out of the Temple Station are in state prison for stealing credit cards from motorists. Another was fired after allegedly beating a suspect. Eighteen were named in civil lawsuits that cost the department more than $1 million to settle.

One deputy earned international censure when the Mexican government protested the killing of a Mexican citizen on New Year’s Eve. Another faces criminal prosecution for rape, yet another for planting false evidence.

Meanwhile, 118 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, most of them working out of Temple Station, are accused in a civil suit of repeatedly and systematically violating the constitutional rights of an entire neighborhood.

E. Thomas Barham, attorney for a man beaten by deputies in 1989, said internal Sheriff’s Department documents released in that suit give “a flavor for an organization that had virtually no accountability, where misconduct was forgiven, or never identified.”

Then, six months ago, Capt. Robert Mirabella assumed command of Temple station. With a master’s thesis that stressed community-oriented policing and a crackerjack reputation from a 14-month, high-profile stint as a lieutenant in Long Beach, Mirabella pledged to create a bond between deputies and the communities they patrol.

“We need to not only develop and deal with the crime issue out here, but we need to win the hearts of the people we’re serving,” Mirabella said in a recent interview.

He met with community leaders, put more sergeants on patrol to better supervise deputies, began a tracking system to catch problem officers, and proposed joint community and law enforcement anti-crime programs in the five cities under Temple’s jurisdiction.

The Kolts report, a 359-page review of the sheriff’s operations commissioned last year by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was critical of the department overall but noted some exceptions. Of 91 sheriff’s captains, the report praised just three--one was Mirabella.

“There is also some healthy experimentation taking place, particularly at Temple City Station under Capt. Bob Mirabella,” the report said, citing his community-oriented policing projects and deputy tracking system. “We think that his well-thought-out approach should be emulated throughout the (Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department).”

Karol Heppe of Police Watch, a Los Angeles civil rights organization, said complaints about Temple have gone down. In 1990, the group tallied 30 complaints against the Temple Station, 1.1% of its 2,654 complaints against law enforcement agencies that year. Last year, Temple Station logged 27 complaints, .7% of the 3,888 total. Through July of this year, 11 complaints against Temple were received.

Some residents say they too have noticed the changes.

“They treat people like human beings,” said Marlene Davis, who lives in an unincorporated area near Duarte. “They don’t shove people around like they used to.”

Temple City Assistant City Manager Donald Wagner noticed “an effort to try to coordinate with other resources in the community, such as schools and (nonprofit organizations).” Mirabella, he said, is “trying to get deputies known out there in the communities and get it so that people aren’t afraid to talk to them.”

The captain says the station’s past problems came from a handful of deputies.

“You do everything you can for quality control, but our deputies work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, around the clock, out there in contact with the community on a one-on-one basis,” he said. “If someone’s really intent on violating policy, there is always the potential they can do that.”

Limiting that potential and improving the station’s image and operations are now his job, Mirabella said.

Under him are 197 deputies who patrol a diverse, 62.3-square-mile area. The territory includes Bradbury, population 833, an affluent residential town nestled in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills (called “up top” by Temple deputies) and the relatively low-crime cities of Duarte and Temple City.

But parts of Rosemead and South El Monte, plus an unincorporated area between Monrovia and Duarte, are “fast.” They have the highest crime rates among the five cities patrolled by Temple Station deputies. Burglaries and Asian and Latino gangs boost the crime rate in Rosemead, while two Latino gangs clash in South El Monte.

Although the Temple Station has one of the lowest crime rates among the 19 sheriff’s stations, it logs more arrests than most others.

For example, in 1991--with 18 murders and a crime rate of 454.5 major crimes per 1,000 people--Temple ranked sixth-lowest in crime among the county’s 19 stations, according to sheriff’s statistics.

Yet the station logged 6,679 arrests in 1991, surpassing 10 other stations.

Lax supervision--which the Kolts report said was departmentwide--was a problem at Temple, some residents and attorneys said.

Capt. Richard N. Walls, who headed Temple from March, 1989, to February, 1992, was easygoing and well-liked by his deputies. But critics say the 28-year Sheriff’s Department veteran lacked substantial experience in supervising officers in the field, avoided strict discipline and failed to keep a tight rein--from top supervisors down to deputies in patrol cars.

In the 17 years before commanding the Temple station, Walls spent one year supervising patrol deputies, as an operations lieutenant at the Crescenta Valley Station.

Walls, who declined to be interviewed, was transferred in February to inspection services in downtown Los Angeles. He no longer supervises field deputies but audits stations countywide to ensure that they follow department policy and procedures.

Chief Roy Brown, a regional commander who oversees two specialized bureaus and nine stations, including Temple, said he recommended the transfer. Brown said he was concerned about Walls’ health after a quadruple-bypass heart operation in early 1990.

“He was doing a great job, in my opinion,” Brown said. “The ability to directly supervise people in the field is not a necessity for being a good captain.”

Brown said the station’s problems arose because of character flaws in a few deputies. “If you’d taken any of those deputies and put them in another station, the same thing would have happened,” he said.

Some Temple deputies disagreed. “What do they do when the team’s batting .150?” one deputy joked recently.

“They fire the coach!” another answered.

The station’s new “coach,” Mirabella, wouldn’t have been anyone’s pick to become a sheriff’s captain. Growing up in South-Central Los Angeles, near Slauson and Vermont avenues, he was the only Italian-American in a Latino gang.

When he was 15, his parents moved to Torrance, and he dropped his street-tough swagger for the confident strut of a high school wrestler and football player.

“The neighborhood defines what kids do,” Mirabella says, explaining his commitment to community-oriented policing.

Espoused by Sheriff Sherman Block, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams and scores of other law enforcement leaders nationwide, community-oriented policing is the newest of police philosophies. The approach employs officers not solely as crime busters, but also as agents of social change to improve neighborhoods and deter crime.

But Mirabella, 48, a 23-year-veteran of the department, dates his commitment to the idea from the 1970s. The muscular, soft-spoken, long-distance runner eagerly pulls out his master’s thesis from the University of La Verne and quotes whole paragraphs. And he points to framed newspaper headlines from Long Beach, where he put the theory into action.

In November, 1990, as a lieutenant, Mirabella took charge of 40 deputies in north Long Beach under a dual-policing plan with Long Beach Police. He distributed questionnaires asking residents and business owners to list crime problems, devised postcards on which residents could rate deputies who answered service calls and enlisted residents to videotape crimes.

During three months in the summer of 1991, crime dropped 13.8% in areas patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department, while rising 5.6% in areas patrolled by Long Beach Police.

Mirabella has similar plans for the five cities patrolled by Temple deputies. Already, three cities have approved his proposals for public forums on crime, questionnaires to determine community needs and expansion of crime watch programs.

Deputies focusing on crime prevention will be assigned to city halls. Other deputies will coordinate law enforcement and community action for each city. Citizen advisory teams will meet with station management to provide information about specific criminal activities and locations.

“That’s the kind of thing we want, more community involvement,” Mirabella said. “The people have to help us with the problems, and they have to help us with innovative solutions.”

The captain has also reorganized the station. Before, one sergeant supervised an entire shift. Now, as many as four are on duty. Complaints, lawsuits and disciplinary actions against Temple deputies that were scattered in files departmentwide have been consolidated at Temple Station.

Deputies who chalk up a list of such complaints are counseled to avoid major problems. Finally, Mirabella has stressed communication between line deputies and their supervisors by requiring monthly meetings.

The approach is already making a difference in Monrovia-County, an unincorporated area west of Duarte once considered among the roughest parts of the Temple area.

Today, children and senior citizens wave when Sgt. Sam Jones cruises by in his patrol car. Young men lean into the passenger side window to chat. Deputies receive crime tips, along with pies and cakes baked by grateful residents, Jones said.

“They knew the gangsters in the area by sight and by name,” Jones said of the deputies. “But they couldn’t walk up to local residents and say, ‘Mr. Smith, Mrs. Johnson, how are the grandkids?’ ”

Even critics say the deputies have improved their demeanor. Attorney John Burton, who is handling the lawsuit against 118 deputies, says he receives fewer brutality complaints.

“A lot of the low-level beatings that were so common and were building in frequency, those seem to have diminished,” Burton said. “What we have now are the more serious ones, but they’re stopping some of that lower-level brutality.”

And David Hall, president of the Monrovia, Arcadia, Duarte branch of the NAACP, says his area is now a friendly one.

Mirabella wants to duplicate the idea in South San Gabriel and East Pasadena, unincorporated areas also patrolled by Temple City deputies.

“We’re trying to teach the deputies they’ve got to show care for the people and then people care about you,” he said.

In the Media Spotlight Among the incidents in the Temple Station in 1991:

Jan. 1: Ignoring department orders to avoid New Year’s Eve revelers firing guns into the air, Deputy Brian E. Kazmierski, 26, confronted Pedro Castaneda Gonzalez, 28, a Mexican national, and two other men in the carport of an El Monte apartment building. The three were taking turns firing a revolver in the air. Kazmierski said he shot when Castaneda failed to obey his command and pointed the pistol at him. The shooting took on international implications when the Mexican consul general protested. The district attorney’s office later found insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against the deputy, but civil lawsuits are pending in state and federal court.

April: An investigation began into three deputies accused of stealing credit cards from elderly motorists. Criminal charges were filed Sept. 3 against Deputies Steven Switzer, 31; Edward Perez, 35, and Brent Mosley, 27, who stopped more than 20 motorists on trumped-up charges, took their cards and fraudulently used them to buy more than $100,000 worth of sports equipment, jewelry and stereos. The deputies pleaded guilty Dec. 9 and were sentenced to state prison terms varying from three to five years.

June 6: A federal civil rights lawsuit was filed against 59 deputies by 67 residents of Monrovia-County, an unincorporated area west of Duarte. In the lawsuit, residents who live near Pamela Park said Temple deputies conducted eight raids and illegal searches in their neighborhood from June 6 to Sept. 18, 1990. The lawsuit, which is pending, has since been amended to include 59 more deputies.

September: Deputy Glen Cozart, 31, a field training officer at Temple, was suspended pending an investigation into accusations he planted evidence on suspects, falsified police reports and lied while testifying in court. After an investigation by the district attorney and sheriff’s internal investigators, criminal charges were filed July 7. Cozart is accused of planting cocaine on one suspect in May and November of 1990, of filing a false police report against two suspects in April, 1991, and of falsely testifying against a fourth suspect. A preliminary hearing will be set Sept. 16 in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

October: The county settled for $62,500 a federal lawsuit filed by Ronald Imhoff, 19, who was injured after being beaten by deputies who were called to a noisy Temple City party on Aug. 26, 1989. Imhoff refused to leave the party when ordered by a deputy and was beaten by three other deputies wielding batons and flashlights. Although the deputies said Imhoff karate-kicked one of them, criminal charges against Imhoff were dropped when the deputies failed to appear in court. Imhoff’s attorney, E. Thomas Barham, got access to 2,000 pages of Sheriff’s Department internal complaint files covering 1985 to 1990, but was stopped by a court order from making the files public.

Oct. 14: Joseph Ornelas, a 5 foot, 4 inch robbery suspect, died after fighting with two, six-foot deputies. A former El Monte gang member with a history of drug use, Ornelas, 25, was intoxicated on PCP, cocaine and alcohol when, authorities said, he stole a truck at knife-point from two men sitting in a South El Monte convenience store parking lot. Deputies in the lot stopped the robbery, striking Ornelas with their flashlights. One deputy jumped on Ornelas’ back as he tried to crawl away. The coroner’s office found that Ornelas died of a heart attack caused by the neck injuries and chest compression by the deputies, drug intoxication and an enlarged heart from prolonged drug use. No charges were filed.

Oct. 24: Deputy Lloyd Shoemaker, 33, a patrol officer, was charged with rape, oral copulation and lewd conduct after he allegedly sexually assaulted three women motorists he stopped for phony traffic violations in April, October and December of 1990. Trial is set for Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

November: Deputy Michael Thomas was fired two years after a Temple City raid in which three men were beaten. On Sept. 30, 1989, Thomas and another deputy answered a 3:30 a.m. noise complaint. Thomas encountered a drunken Fred Scott Mace, 27, who told Thomas to “get a real job.” Thomas pursued Mace into his apartment and summoned other deputies when Mace resisted. Mace’s left testicle was smashed during the melee and later surgically removed. Mace’s 61-year-old father, Leigh, suffered two fractured ribs and a broken toe during the struggle. Another man in the apartment, Russel Trice, required back surgery for a herniated disc. The county settled a suit filed by the three men for $925,000.