FULLERTON : Police Officer Helps Bridge Cultural Gap

A group of Laotian residents recently had their garages broken into but weren’t sure whether calling the police would do any good.

That’s a common feeling among new immigrants, said Alma Buis, minority affairs officer for the Police Department.

“Sometimes they say: ‘What good is it? Why should I report it?’ ” Buis said.

Buis, who works at the department’s Valencia Community Center office, said she was flagged down by the residents who were discussing their dilemma. She later set up a meeting for them with two detectives, who explained police procedures.

“One of the things we told them is that we needed the residents’ ears and eyes to fight crime,” Buis said.

Buis, 41, used to work in the department’s traffic bureau. She was often called upon to help detectives and other investigators with assignments because she is bilingual, speaking Spanish and English. “There were always people coming to me with all these problems,” she said.

The bilingual work was more exciting to her than checking cars for broken headlights, Buis said. When she read in a newspaper about a police officer in Santa Ana whose job it was to bridge the cultural gap between Latino residents and the police force, Buis decided to propose creating a similar position in Fullerton.

Now she is the city’s first and only minority affairs officer. She was honored with a service award by Police Chief Philip A. Goehring in March, only a month after she started the program. She tries to make officers more aware of the city’s ethnic diversity and works to increase the residents’ trust of police. A civilian employee, she doesn’t wear a uniform or carry a gun.

Buis worked to diffuse a potentially violent situation in September after a Latino student at Fullerton High School was shot, allegedly by Vietnamese gang members. Buis said Vietnamese parents contacted her and said they feared a pay-back would be unleashed on innocent children.

Buis said she enlisted the help of the Orange County Human Relations Commission and got counselors to meet with the children and parents. Police officers who specialize in gang work also worked to calm the situation, she said. So far, there has been no retaliation, she said.

Buis also helps daily with other problems at the Valencia Center, which is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.