The Beat Goes On : Officer and Son Who Followed in His Footsteps Patrol Together for a Day

Talk about a son following in his father’s footsteps.

As Officer Joe Martinez, the father, walked his foot beat through East Los Angeles on Tuesday, with him every step was Officer Chris Martinez, the son.

The 24-year-old Chris mostly kept a respectful silence as his father went through the rituals of what they call “community policing” these days--stopping to tousle the hair of a young boy, chatting with merchants, some of whom he knew by first name; and offering a hello to the children pedaling their bikes along North Broadway.

And occasionally, Officer Joe even offered an acknowledgment of the kid watching his every move. “I feel like I’m in seventh heaven,” the 53-year-old gushed to Bill Wong, a bakery shop owner along his beat. “This doesn’t happen all the time.”

Indeed, it was a one-day partnership, arranged after both Joe and Chris--who usually is assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southwest Division--expressed an interest in working together.

The pairing was approved by Capt. Robert E. Kimball, who was Chris’ boss at Southwest before becoming Joe’s boss at the Hollenbeck Division in East Los Angeles.

Kimball said he relished the notion of the pair working as equals after having seen “the father watching the son grow up (and seeing) the value systems that come together.”

The elder Martinez confided, though, that he had not wanted his son to follow him onto the force. He wanted Chris to go to college, maybe become a teacher. It was a desire not driven so much by the dangers of police work, he said, but by a feeling that his son had “other talents.”

So Chris didn’t tell his parents when he applied to the LAPD about three years ago. He broke the news only after he was halfway through his testing. They didn’t protest.

On Tuesday, Chris sat beside his father during 10 a.m. roll call.

“I remember waiting for him to come home as a child,” Chris recalled. “My brother and I would sit there and we would ask him what happened through the day.”

On this day, he saw for himself. Joe spoke to some shopkeepers in Spanish, others in English. The owner of a woman’s clothing store, Opera Fashion, said she had some shoplifting problems several months ago, but all was quiet now. So was the patrol, with no emergencies--a bit of a contrast, Joe noted, to Chris’ normal day on car patrols in Southwest, dealing with bullets and the like.

Joe, who has been on the force for two decades, said he plans to put in another 10 years. He said he gave his son the same advice he gives to every new officer he works with: “Be careful. Be conscious of everything around you.”

He may get an opportunity to hand out more on-the-job advice. Chris has requested a transfer to Hollenbeck. But not necessarily, he said, to work with his father as a permanent partner.

“Hollenbeck,” he said, “is a nice area.”