Police Official Says He’ll Miss Serving Valley

Hours after his tenure as the Valley’s top cop officially ended, Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker told a group of business owners in Woodland Hills on Monday that he will miss serving the northern part of Los Angeles.

“While I’m always up for new challenges, I will leave a part of me behind in the Valley,” Kroeker told about 60 members of Business Watch, an anti-crime group. “I have fallen in love with it.”

Kroeker became head of operations at the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau as of 12 a.m. Monday.

At a meeting at the Warner Center Marriott, which included speeches by Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and Councilwoman Laura Chick, Kroeker touted the gains that he said police have made in the Valley since he took the job 2 1/2 years ago.

The popular deputy chief is widely believed to have been tapped to head the South Bureau because of his efforts to expand community-based policing in the Valley, where the overall crime rate dropped 6.3% during the past year.

Displaying a French magazine with a cover story about gangs in Los Angeles, Kroeker told the business owners that the nation’s second largest city suffers from an international perception that it is unsafe for potential investors and tourists. That perception, he said, has rubbed off on the police rank and file.

Kroeker said he will remain in the Valley for the next weeks, to smooth the transition for his replacement, Martin H. Pomeroy. Pomeroy was unable to attend the Business Watch meeting.