Q&A; : Captain Leads Lennox Through Tough Times

Deputies from Lennox station, the oldest and one of the more embattled in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, patrol from Marina del Rey inland to the Vermont Avenue area on the border of Watts. Last year in the Vermont area, one in every 30 of its 32,000 residents was assaulted. Lennox deputies make more than 600 arrests a month, handle more calls and are fired upon more than any others in the county--in 1992 they were shot at 26 times.

But lately Lennox station has not made headlines for its crime-fighting. It has been in the news for the conduct of its deputies: 25 were suspended for drinking beer at a predawn party in Alondra Park while they were supposed to be on reserve duty for the Calibasas-Malibu wildfire. One of the deputies fired his gun into the ground.

Station commander Capt. Jack Scully, who took his post in 1992, recently spoke with The Times about the station.

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Q: You’ve been in the Sheriff’s Department for 30 years, and you specifically requested this area if the command post ever became available. Why?

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A: There’s something special at this station. In the Vermont area, more than 60% of the people live below the poverty line. They deserve good service, and if you’re poor and outside the loop you don’t always get what everybody else gets. I like the people in this community; they appreciate what we can do for them. I get very few complaints, because I think we do a good job.

And, the deputies who work here are special. For the most part, these deputies drive an average of 75 miles one-way to work. They live a long ways away--in Palmdale, Lancaster, Riverside--because they’re young and they can’t afford housing. Then, after driving a long way to get here, they work in the oldest station with the highest crime rate. We have older equipment, we don’t get everything we ask for because of budget problems, and because of budget problems there have been no promotions, no transfers. Yet, they don’t complain.

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Q: The past couple of years have been tough for the Sheriff’s Department, and for the Lennox station in particular, topped off by the Alondra Park incident. How has this affected the public’s perception of how you do your job?

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A: With all the problems since Rodney King, police departments nationwide are feeling like they have taken a hell of a beating that they don’t necessarily deserve. Our deputies feel it when they go home. In social contacts, other people look at them like, ‘Do you all do what was done to Rodney King?’ Then they worry about budget cuts, getting laid off. All those kinds of things affect morale.

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Q: After the Alondra Park incident was reported, the deputies admitted their guilt and took their suspensions without the expected appeals. How is that indicative of the ethic here, and what did you do to build it?

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A: We are trying to rebuild this station. It’s had pretty good morale, but what we need to do now is take the Alondra Park incident as a positive and say, “OK, we did something stupid.” We all screw up, but not all of us admit to it. Challenge TRW, challenge some other private institution where there is some kind of misconduct to see if everybody says, “Yeah, I screwed up. Where do I get in line for my punishment?” We tell the truth. That’s the ethic we have here.

I punished them severely--most were suspended for 15 days and that is going to cost them a couple thousand dollars. The most severe discipline, for firing a gun into the ground, was for 30 days and that’s going to cost him about $4,000.

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Q: No doubt some people would say that when an employee at TRW messes up at least he doesn’t have a gun in his belt.

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A: I am not trying to lessen what they did. We have three plaques downstairs honoring the memory of three deputies who were killed in the line of duty. “What do your actions do,” I asked them, “to their memory and to the things that others here try to do?” A few of the deputies involved were problem types, but the majority of them were--and are--very good deputies who have embarrassed themselves.

For the most part, in all my 30-plus years, Lennox station has always been known as the best, or one of the best, sheriff’s stations. I think after the thing in the park, every one of us wants to restore that reputation. I tell the deputies that what that means for them is that sense of pride, that wherever they go they can say, “I work Lennox station.” We have to re-establish that great reputation.

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Q: What can you do to build this? What’s your command style?

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A: It’s a simple open-door policy. I came here in the fall of ’92 and I told them what I want from them is officer safety. If someone died under my command, I am not sure I could stay on in the department. I’m not sure how I would handle it. I said, “If you do anything to take away from officer safety, I’ll kick your butt up and down Vermont. I don’t want you to do anything to embarrass yourself or get suspended or in any kind of trouble. Treat people decently. Treat each other decently. Live decently in the community. And, have fun doing all this.”

I also said I would never lie to them, and I don’t want them to lie to me. I’ve tried to let them know how good they are. They are much better than when I was a patrol deputy.

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Q: How? Are they different?

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A: They are not that much different, but I think the training they get is much better, and the areas they work are much tougher. Five years ago we seized 600 guns at this station. Last year we seized 1,200 guns, 600 from the Vermont area.

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Q: There’s been a lot of attention paid to the idea of community-based policing, where law enforcement officers go into one area. Everybody gets to know them and they get to know everybody. But the problem with that is the possibility for law enforcement corruption--police being paid to look the other way in their area. How do you keep the integrity of law enforcement?

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A: I don’t think there is a problem with integrity. I think it is a good program.

Six years ago in the Vermont area there were no organized sports activities like Little League because the gangs controlled the parks. So we began a program to take back the parks. We started a youth athletic league where we took deputies normally assigned to patrol to work with the youth teams.

From that, we have built a youth center at 119th and Vermont that opened one year after the riots. We use that as a base to work out of. We have just added a bike patrol to the area around Washington High School. The deputies get stopped all the time (by people) thanking them that the gangs are moving on. You’re talking about a community where shots are fired every night.

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Q: But how much of that kind of outreach can you do?

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A: It’s tough. Because of budget cuts, I have 18 fewer people. When people retire, or go off work stressed, or decide they want to be a policeman in Idaho, I can’t replace them. There are so many programs we want to do, but we don’t have the bodies to fill them.

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Q: If you could have all the money and manpower you needed, what would be on your wish list?

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A: I would expand the bike patrols first, because they work.

They said last year that violent crime went down (in the Los Angeles area). Well, I don’t think anyone in the county of Los Angeles feels safer. Just because we were better than the previous horrendous year doesn’t mean the world is getting better. Our goal is to reduce the fear level, to help the woman who is afraid to walk from the bus stop to her home after work. Bike patrols can do that.

When we first talked about doing this, I looked at the crime rates and said, “Whoa. I’m not going to put a deputy out there on a bike . What about getting shot at?” But the deputies came back to me with a whole program. Now they are out there, and they love the fact that they are dealing with people who are saying thanks.

I was going to put a new facility on that wish list, but I’m not sure the deputies even worry about that. We need more cars in certain areas. We have one car working the Lennox area at night. When you look at the crime here, that’s tough for one car to be working (alone).

Capt. Jack Scully

Age: 51

Career: Scully began his career with the Sheriff’s Department in April, 1963. He worked the narcotics detail and later as a homicide investigator in the Lennox station. After being promoted to lieutenant, he was made watch commander of the station and eventually rose to the rank of operations lieutenant. Before his assignment to the Lennox command post in the fall of 1992, Scully worked for five years as Sheriff Sherman Block’s executive assistant.

Personal: A Los Angeles native, he is married and has no children.