Police Chief Seeks a Rapport With Oxnard Residents : Community: Harold Hurtt, hired last year, says he finds out what people want by talking to them. He has opened Ventura County’s first storefront station; another is planned.

Three years ago, John Branthoover and his neighbors banded together to ward off crime in their north Oxnard subdivision. But when the newly formed patrol took to the streets, the police were as much a worry as the crooks.

“It was adversarial at one point,” Branthoover said. “Officers would come on calls and want to know who we were and what we were doing on the street at that hour.”

So when newly hired Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt called last year and later showed up for a two-hour nighttime ride-along, Branthoover was stunned.

“It meant we now had a chief who cared enough about an individual neighborhood to come out and find out what was going on,” he said. “I was very impressed.”

It’s that kind of rapport with the community that Hurtt hopes will be the hallmark of his administration. And in his opinion, it is the basis on which police chiefs throughout the country will increasingly be judged.

“The only way you find out what people want and think is to go and talk to them,” he said.

Several dozen residents of Branthoover’s Rio Lindo patrol rotate shifts each week, patrolling the neighborhood with two-way radios to report suspicious activity. Members do not carry weapons, but do occasionally make citizen’s arrests.

While Hurtt made points with Branthoover by riding with the patrol, he takes a cautious approach in evaluating the group’s worth.

Although he says the patrol is very effective in reducing crime, he also said: “I worry about liability issues people may get themselves into, because they’re not properly trained.”

Hurtt, who spent 24 years with the Phoenix Police Department and rose to the rank of executive assistant chief, was hired last year on a promise to continue the community-based policing efforts begun by retired Chief Robert Owens.

Since then, Hurtt has opened Ventura County’s first storefront police station, rekindled citywide interest in Neighborhood Watch and has stepped up the use of bicycle and walking patrols.

In trying to expand the role that police play, Hurtt also has had to adjust to having fewer resources at his command. In Phoenix, the department had a $160-million budget and employed 2,050 officers. In Oxnard, the police budget is about $18.8 million and there are 148 officers.

Despite his strong beliefs in community-based policing--a concept as old as the traditional beat cop--Hurtt said he came to Oxnard with an open mind.

“It would have been inappropriate for me to come in here with a cookie-cutter approach and try to force it on the residents of Oxnard,” he said. “That’s why I tried to make as many meetings and speaking engagements as possible.”

Indeed, for his first eight months on the job, Hurtt attended five or six receptions and neighborhood meetings a week. As a result, some officers say the chief hasn’t had much time to meet his front-line patrol officers, especially those officers working graveyard and early morning shifts.

If Hurtt’s schedule has left some in his department feeling somewhat ignored, it has done just the opposite for city leaders.

Councilman Bedford Pinkard said Hurtt’s visibility has improved relations between Oxnard police, who were named in several brutality cases a few years ago, and the community they are sworn to serve.

“It’s a friendlier force now,” he said.

Even more important than the public praise was the council’s recent vote to give Hurtt $500,000 to hire eight additional officers. On the same night, major cuts were made to other city departments.

“He’s in a very difficult position because he has a limited budget, limited staff and a very diverse, relatively young community, which creates more problems,” Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “I think he’s doing an excellent job.”

In dealing with the council, Lopez said Hurtt’s demeanor is less polished than Owens’.

“Hurtt is not as smooth, but he is very credible,” he said.

Councilman Andres Herrera said of Hurtt: “When he first came on board, he was everywhere and anywhere exposing himself to what the fiber of this community is all about.”

For example, Herrera said, Hurtt met last fall with La Colonia residents who angrily told him they felt the barrio had been neglected by police and city leaders.

Since the storefront police station opened, near an intersection notorious as a hub for drug sales, crime rates have dropped and many residents now say they feel safer.

“It’s left a very strong impression on the community, and I think the community would like to see that continue,” said La Colonia Neighborhood Council President Carlos Aguilera.

Initially, the increased police presence in Oxnard’s poorest neighborhood met with resistance.

A firebomb was tossed into La Paloma restaurant adjacent to the police storefront. Windshields of four squad cars were shattered in two separate incidents. And in an angry confrontation, a group of La Colonia youths accused police of harassment and being heavy-handed.

Hurtt said it simply showed how entrenched crime had become in the area and how badly the storefront station was needed.

And now that the department is poised to open a second storefront operation in the Southwinds area, Hurtt is drawing upon the lessons learned in La Colonia.

Last week, he warned residents that there will probably be complaints of harassment and brutality against officers.

To counter those claims, he urged residents to write City Council members in support of the police.

“If you’re not there for us in the long term, this concept will not work,” he told a group of about 20 Southwinds residents.

But no matter how fervently Hurtt wants to bring what he calls “holistic” policing to Oxnard, he cannot do it alone. He must have the resources and he must have the backing of his officers.

Lt. Joe Munoz, a patrol watch commander, said most officers are too busy responding to serious crime calls to spend much time on community relations. “I think the majority of people who work for us know what the concept is, but they never have the chance to practice it,” he said. “So as a result, they don’t see the value of the total approach.”

As for resources, Munoz said, the department is stretched trying to run two storefronts and still covering the rest of the city with regular patrols.

Officer Steve Blanchard, president of Oxnard’s police union, agreed.

“When you’re putting out so many different programs or special projects, it tends to thin out the ranks. It’s great to have the programs, but we still need the people,” he said.

To help beef up staffing, Hurtt supports expanding the use of reserve officers. He faces opposition from the police union, which is now at an impasse with the city over salary negotiations.

Blanchard said officers fear they will be replaced by the reserves.

And, he said, expanding the use of reserves will “diminish the quality of service provided by officers” because they don’t have the same amount of training.

Hurtt rejects that claim and says he thinks differences with the union can be worked out if reserves are supervised and used for specific projects.

As the first black police chief in the county’s largest and most violent city, Hurtt has been highly visible in his first year.

Black and Latino residents in particular, Hurtt said, may think, “He’s been there, he understands, and if nothing else, he’s a brother.”

Replacing a popular chief credited with modernizing the department and starting nationally recognized programs has also put pressure on Hurtt to perform.

“People kept telling me I had awful big shoes to fill,” he said. “I knew I had a challenge, but I wear big shoes, too.”

In Phoenix, Hurtt said he grew accustomed to being in the public eye.

After Phoenix police officers shot and killed two black men and a Latino in 1984, Hurtt helped form a civilian review panel for police brutality charges.

And when a black church from Chicago with unorthodox religious views clashed with lawmen in southeast Arizona, Hurtt was dispatched by the state to try to smooth things over.

Yet Hurtt’s history with Phoenix made some Oxnard officers nervous, concerned that he would impose big-city ways on the medium-sized department.

“After having a chief here over 20 years, there was a lot of apprehension, especially from a chief that was coming from out of state,” Blanchard said.

By introducing himself at patrol briefings and taking a low-key approach, Hurtt has overcome much of the initial skepticism and gained the confidence of his staff, Blanchard said.

Officers now say the biggest difference between Owens and Hurtt is their management styles.

While Owens built a close relationship with his officers, socializing with them and encouraging an open-door policy, Hurtt has reinforced the department’s chain of command and emphasized accountability, according to officers.

“I ignored the chain of command a lot,” Owens said. “It’s an impediment. Any chief that relies on the chain of command to the exclusion of all else is heading for trouble.”

Officer Larry Lawrence, a 31-year veteran who is near retirement, said Hurtt’s emphasis on order and discipline has been a welcome change.

He called Hurtt a “working man’s policeman,” who gives clear orders and understands the work of the street cop.

Senior Officer Bill Tatum agreed with Lawrence, adding that Hurtt appears to have brought a more even hand to discipline, ending what some saw as favoritism under Owens.

“Before, it was the good old boy type of system,” he said. “An officer would do something he should have been disciplined for, and you would hear the comment: ‘Well, that’s just how he is. He didn’t mean it.’ ”

Owens said such comments are to be expected. Oftentimes, he said, officers who complain that discipline is meted out unevenly do not know all the facts involved.

“My feeling is, you use only that level of discipline which was sufficient to accomplish your ends,” he said. “You don’t punish somebody to appease the public or anything like that.”

Owens also said he’s not surprised officers described his style as more casual than his successor’s. “He came from a very, very large organization. Out of necessity, they tend to structure things.”

One example of Hurtt’s more formal approach is the department’s new policy on the media. For the first time in the department’s history, Hurtt has appointed an official spokesman.

Hurtt said the new policy is not intended to restrict reporter access. Rather, he said, it will better ensure that information released by the department is accurate.

Hurtt, who will turn 47 on July 14, was born and raised near Lynchburg, Va. He joined the Phoenix Police Department after a four-year stint in the Air Force, during which he was stationed at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix.

Describing himself as a “workout nut,” Hurtt said he is now trying to shed the “12 to 14 pounds of tri-tip” he gained during the initial whirlwind of welcome barbecues.

Hurtt said he rises at 4:45 a.m. each day, scans three newspapers and heads for a morning workout. He is usually in the office by 8.

When he first moved to Oxnard, Hurtt and his family rented a house near the beach. They have since moved to River Ridge.

Leaving Phoenix, Hurtt said, was toughest on his 16-year-old son and his wife, Carol, who is the former director of the juvenile division of the Arizona Department of Corrections. She is now looking for work in the area and has sent out “about 50” resumes.

“She’s gotten pretty frustrated looking for a job,” he said.

Hurtt’s only plans now are to continue being the police chief of Oxnard, and “to retire as the police chief of Oxnard.”

In his second year, Hurtt said he hopes to develop a closer working relationship with his officers, give beat coordinators more time to work on problem solving, and beef up traffic enforcement.

“I personally see three to four red light violations a day,” he added.

For his freshman year efforts, Hurtt assigns himself an “A plus” and says he wouldn’t change a thing. Still, the year was not without its challenges.

The city still faces the highest crime rates in the county, with 6,730 serious crimes per 100,000 people compared to a county average of 4,260 crimes per 100,000.

The month after he arrived, the department came under fire when an officer arrested an Oxnard Shores woman who had called 911 to complain about youths drinking on her street.

The department later issued a public apology for the incident.

Internally, Hurtt sent out a clear message that the mistake should not happen again, although at least one top manager grumbled that the incident had been blown out of proportion.

“The message was, we will always treat our customers in a professional matter. We won’t let our personal feelings enter the decision,” Hurtt said.

Next, a proposed public safety tax to pay for more officers failed to gain steam. And Hurtt’s efforts to reactivate a countywide narcotics task force have not caught on.

Most recently, Hurtt was caught in the political cross-fire over a proposed card club in Oxnard.

Last week, the club was defeated by a 5-0 vote of the City Council after Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury took a strong stance against it, saying it would lead to corruption and invite organized crime into Ventura County.

Throughout the public debate, Hurtt maintained a neutral stance. The fact that Bradbury and Sheriff Larry Carpenter took a strong position against a casino in Oxnard did not bother him, he said.

“They’re entitled to their opinion and approach, to be very outspoken and to take their stance on issues,” he said. “And I think if we all agreed . . . on every issue we wouldn’t need but one person to run the county.”