Cal State L.A. Study Finds Low View of City’s Police : Poll: Professor says only 18% of blacks expect fair treatment at hands of the LAPD. The results contrast sharply with those of another survey.

Students at Cal State Los Angeles had a generally negative view of Los Angeles police last year, according to a survey released Tuesday by an associate professor of psychology at the university.

Gloria Romero, whose pupils conducted the poll among fellow students last spring, said that scientific methodology was used in her random sampling, but her results contrasted sharply with those of a survey conducted here a month ago by a respected polling organization out of Washington, D.C.

Romero, who did not reveal the wording of the questions asked of 1,816 students at the university, said that among those polled a few days after last year’s riots, “only 10% of African-Americans responded (that) they held a quite favorable impression of the LAPD, compared with only 42% of whites, 32% of Asians and 42% of Latinos. . . .

“Only 18% of African-Americans and 32% of Latinos expressed confidence of being treated fairly if arrested,” she said. “Only 32% of whites and 35% of Asians expressed confidence they would be treated fairly.”

During a poll conducted in April by Bendixen & Associates under the sponsorship of KVEA-TV and the newspaper La Opinion, 305 blacks and 301 Latinos in the South-Central and Pico-Union districts were asked, “Do you have a positive or negative opinion of the Los Angeles Police Department?”

Among African-Americans, 54% said positive, 32% said negative and 14% were unsure. Among Latinos, 64% said positive, 25% said negative and 11% were unsure.

Joel Guevara, a Romero student who analyzed the results of her survey during a news conference in front of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Parker Center headquarters, said he was unsure why the results of the polls were so different.

“I can’t account for the difference,” he said. “I’m not aware of the (Bendixen) survey.”

Romero said that most of the students polled, regardless of race or ethnicity, “expressed the belief that police officers will behave corruptly by making up details of a case in order to protect themselves.”

In addition, she said, a similar majority “expressed a belief that officers sometimes hit people with batons or flashlights when there is no need for such,” and “agreed that police use more physical force on ethnic minorities than they do on whites.”

Romero said most of the students believed that police “are more likely to react to their stereotypes of people . . . than to individual actions.”

She said that most of the blacks and Latinos said they doubted that improved race relations would eliminate the use of excessive force by police.

A copy of Romero’s report on her survey was given to the Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday afternoon.