Teen-Agers Vent Anger at Officers : Relations: Police visiting a Van Nuys school are surprised by deep student resentment. Most youths complain of harassment and racism.

Los Angeles police officials participating in a program intended to build better relations between officers and teen-agers instead heard themselves described Thursday as racists who engage in harassment and unprovoked violence against students, their friends and relatives.

“I’m really hurting,” said Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker, who heads Police Department operations in the San Fernando Valley. “To sit here for an hour or more and hear these things, that breaks my heart.”

The officers who visited the Valley Alternative Magnet School in Van Nuys were clearly surprised at the extent of the students’ anger.

Most students at the ethnically mixed school cited racism as the root of confrontations with police.

A black student--one of about 225 students in grades eight through 12 who attended the event--said she and several friends had been standing outside a fast-food restaurant when officers arrived, handcuffed them and taunted them with racist remarks.

Another recalled a similar incident in front of her grandmother’s house, and said that police kicked her friends and yanked their hair.

A Latina student complained that police frequently pulled her over in her car because she drives a Chevrolet Impala, a car associated with gang members. “All the time, they treat you like a dog,” she said.

The police were also told the results of a poll taken earlier at the school. In the poll, 43% of the students contended that they had been harassed by police, 24% said they had witnessed physical abuse by police and 50% said they had heard police make racial remarks.

Kroeker and other department representatives urged students to report incidents of police misconduct. They also told the students that the department is undergoing many changes under new Chief Willie L. Williams, with a renewed emphasis on community-based policing. They asked students to stay involved and not give in to cynicism.

And they reminded the students that police are human. “We need your support,” said Detective Gregory Grant, who works out of Southeast Los Angeles. “Let’s hear about some of the good things we’ve had between us.”

School Principal Terry Morgan said the program was the idea of students who recently attended a conference, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, to get teen-agers to discuss last spring’s riots. “We teach our kids problem-solving techniques,” Morgan said. “Rather than hitting each other, we teach them to talk it out.”

After the program ended, many students did talk with officers who remained to field questions.

Nancy Fandino, 16, and Karen Lemus, 14, said they were hurt and disappointed by what they perceive as a high degree of racism among officers. Lemus, who is part Latina and part Anglo, said that on more than one occasion while she was associating with Latinos, police have told her that she should act and dress more like a white person.

Fandino recalled walking with a friend, who is black, when police shouted racial slurs at him. She added that when a burglary occurred in her neighborhood she felt that Latinos were questioned more harshly than whites.

Harrison Thomas, 14, who is black, remembered changing buses on his way to visit his father in Fullerton when police told him he didn’t belong in that neighborhood.

Some students expressed hope that the event was a step toward improved relations with police and said they would like similar discussions in the future.

But 11th-grader Mykesha Bedford, one of the student organizers, was skeptical. “They get paid to say what they say,” she said.

“Until I see some improvement, I’m going to be a disbeliever.”