Learning What It’s Like to Walk the Beat : Community relations: By teaching residents about law enforcement procedures, the Citizens Police Academy hopes to build stronger ties between officers and the neighborhoods they serve.

Surprising the two “suspects” in a dark room, Maria Baber-Smith tried her best to sound as if she were wearing a badge and barked, “Up against the wall.”

“Spread ‘em,” she added, unable to hold back a giggle.

Safe within the walls of the Pasadena Police Department headquarters, she and two police officers were acting out a scene for her fellow students at the Citizens Police Academy.

Thirty-five Pasadena residents graduated this month from the first of several 10-week workshops on policing that the Pasadena department plans this year.

The academy is one of the ways Pasadena police are trying to build stronger ties between police officers and the communities they patrol, Chief Jerry Oliver said.

“We want citizens to report crime to us. We want them to overcome apathy,” Oliver said.

The first batch of academy graduates includes a workers’ compensation judge; a dean at Pasadena City College; Shirley Adams, executive director of the Pasadena-Foothill branch of the Urban League; former state Assembly candidate Tae Ho Choi; local business owners and community activists.

To give academy students an inside look at police work, students were shown how a baton is used correctly. They fired revolvers at the Police Department’s firing range and rode along with officers in squad cars. And they have discussed police ethics and how arrests are made.

“We are not trying to make them officers,” said Lt. Rick Law, who leads the classes. “We are just trying to give them a taste of . . . how the Pasadena Police Department operates.”

Some academy students who had been critical of police say that now they are more understanding about law enforcement procedures.

Charles Saunders, 22, who is active in Pasadena City College’s Black Student Alliance, decided to join the workshop after Oliver visited his sociology class last fall. Saunders said the police chief invited him to join the academy after he criticized police for inappropriate use of force.

Before beginning the workshops, “I had a lot of beef” with police officers, Saunders said. But he said he now appreciates the kinds of pressures officers endure and feels freer to call the department with a concern or complaint.

Effie Sapp, past president of the Pasadena branch of the NAACP, came away from the workshops with a new appreciation for the speed with which officers must make decisions in dangerous situations.

Sapp was a little too quick on the draw of her special laser gun, taking aim at a training video of a man about to club a woman in a park.

“I shot him when he raised the stick,” she said. “But I was not supposed to do that. I was supposed to say, ‘Halt.’ ”

Sapp said she plans to share what she has learned with members of her church and the Pasadena branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, where she sits on the executive board.

She said she will urge community members to participate in neighborhood watch groups and let them know that there are ways to register complaints about police officers.

“We should stop being so critical of our police force . . . and realize they have a complicated, frustrating job,” she said.

The academy was set up to help police reach out into the community, and in turn give the Police Department input from citizens. To that end, all academy graduates have been invited to sit on boards that will make recommendations to Oliver on department policy, officer discipline and other matters.

Oliver said that the four boards, which will be set up as early as next month, represent “a radical change from the way in which we have done business in the past.”

The boards will be chaired by police commanders and include representatives of all levels of the Police Department, Oliver said. A maximum of two citizen police academy graduates will sit on each board, which will rotate its civilian members throughout the year.

One of the boards will review any use of lethal force against a citizen, Oliver said. Another will make recommendations on safety issues, including pursuits of suspects and complaints of property damage by the public. A third will review officer discipline cases and a fourth will address general department policy issues such as officer dress codes, training and community relations.

Graduates of the academy can share their new understanding of police work with fellow residents, Law and academy participants say.

Choi, a vice chairman of KMBC, a Korean television station in downtown Los Angeles, said he hopes to help Pasadena’s Asian community improve relations with the police. He introduced Law to local business owners to help them overcome their reluctance to report crimes or serve as witnesses. “Lots of Asians are scared of police officers,” he said.

Law said the Citizens Police Academy costs the Police Department about $3,000 per 10-week session, and he expects the program to run two to three times a year.

“We’re going to seek business people all the way to housewives, just people who are interested in being educated by the Police Department,” Oliver said.

The department also plans to put 30 members of the Pasadena clergy through a program such as the citizens academy.

Similar citizen academies take place across the country and as far away as England and Ireland. In Santa Barbara, a 3-year-old program has brought increased cooperation from the community, said Will Wood, an officer with the Santa Barbara Police Department.

“It’s a lot easier to get our job done when people want to work with us instead of against us,” he said.