Quiet Town Grieves Like a Family : Community: ‘We lost a couple of kids today,’ Palos Verdes Estates Chief Gary Johansen says. Slain officers had a loyal following among residents and colleagues.

It was somehow fitting that the worst tragedy in the history of the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department happened outside city limits.

In a community where roof colors are regulated and homeowners are supposed to conceal their garbage cans from public view--even on collection day--residents boast that the crime rate is among the lowest in Los Angeles County because the city simply does not allow it.

“We are the kind of department that helps get your cat out of the tree,” said Police Chief Gary Johansen, who has enough spare time to double as assistant city manager. “In most cities, cops have become the bad guys. We’ve managed to stay the good guys.”

Among the most respected of the good guys were Capt. Mike Tracy and Sgt. Tom Vanderpool, both killed Monday when a masked gunman opened fire in a conference room at a Torrance hotel. The men typified the department’s low-key but highly dependable approach to policing, each attracting a loyal following in the community and among the 34 other employees in the Police Department.

Tracy, 50, was deputy police chief and the longest-serving policeman on the tight-knit force. He briefly served as chief in the late 1980s and earned the South Bay Medal of Valor when he rappelled down a steep cliff and grabbed a man bent on suicide before he could jump to his death.

Vanderpool, 57, was the department’s oldest officer, playing Santa Claus at Christmas and acting as the city’s self-described “widgetry sergeant,” overseeing everything from training to vehicle maintenance.

“We are a family, and we lost a couple of kids today,” a grieving Johansen said outside police headquarters. “They are going to be very hard to replace.”

The oldest and arguably proudest of four towns perched atop the exclusive Palos Verdes Peninsula, Palos Verdes Estates has always placed a high premium on its bucolic setting and relative isolation at the southern tip of Santa Monica Bay.

The community is so removed from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, police say out-of-town burglars often get nabbed on their way home after getting lost on the city’s many winding, poorly lighted back streets. The No. 1 crime problem is vandalism, and Mayor Michael C. Moody said he could recall no murder since 1977, when a son killed his mother. (Police say there actually have been a few since then, but none in at least three years.)

With a median household income topping $100,000 a year and the average home selling for $600,000, Palos Verdes Estates belongs to the same class of affluent Los Angeles suburbs as Beverly Hills and San Marino. But it has never gained--nor sought--the limelight of its better-known counterparts, preferring to bask in the tranquillity of self-imposed obscurity.

“It is good living here, and people like it quiet,” said Tom Johnson, a 34-year resident who sells real estate. “Not too many people know it, but God spends his weekends here.”

Residents describe the 4.5-square-mile town--one-quarter of which is parkland--as a place where neighbors look out for one another but generally keep to themselves. In 1989, when the city marked its 50th birthday, elected officials sponsored a festival only after floating the idea in a city newsletter. “We’re a conservative community, and we don’t celebrate much at all,” the mayor explained at the time.

The city has two small commercial districts that serve as unofficial town centers, the largest at Malaga Cove near City Hall and the police headquarters. But businesses have had a tough go of it, with most of the mom-and-pop shops at Malaga Cove Plaza closing during the real-estate boom of the 1980s, when rising land values forced them out and brought a slew of real estate companies and financial institutions to town.

The small commercial tax base has made it tough, despite the wealth of its residents, to keep the city running, forcing officials to seek special assessments to pay for many services. On several occasions, aspiring politicians have proposed cutting the budget by eliminating the Police Department, but as Johnson said, those politicians enjoyed very brief careers.

“When you have something good, you don’t want to mess with it,” Johnson said.

But the city of 13,500 pays a hefty price of $2.8 million a year--more than half of its operating budget--to maintain its distinction as the only peninsula city with a police department, the others having contracts with the Sheriff’s Department.

That distinction has helped build a strong bond between residents and officers, one that was apparent Tuesday as dozens of people paid tribute to the dead officers by placing flowers outside the police station and making monetary donations to their families. One card was signed, “Just one of PV’s grateful residents,” while others listed family names and organizations across the South Bay.

“A precious piece of innocence was taken away, and I am really (angry) about it,” said a teary-eyed man who tossed a bouquet of flowers on the grass outside police headquarters. Identifying himself only as 38-year-old Ross, the man said he drove from Tarzana to pay tribute to the downed officers, both of whom he knew as a kid growing up in Palos Verdes Estates.

“They kept you honest, but not in a heavy-handed way,” he said, recalling stories of Vanderpool scolding him after chasing him off an open field on his motorcycle.

Others who stopped by the police station had memories of two men who had long been an integral part of the community.

“Both of them were those rare officers who always had a smile, always had a joke,” said Alicia Dunn of San Pedro.

Although some Palos Verdes Estates officers eventually move on because of the town’s sleepy reputation, most of the 23 sworn officers are longtime veterans, attracted by the pretty setting and deliberate pace. Indeed, some chose the job because of the pastoral duty, a job where officer shootings could never happen.

Like Tracy and Vanderpool, most of the force cannot afford to live in the city where they work, with the city’s top cop earning far less than the median household income. But in a deal worked out with city officials, Johansen and several officers live in town in multimillion-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The city purchased the homes after they were damaged in a landslide and allow the officers to live there in exchange for maintaining them.

“We think it is a good deal because we are glad to have them in the city, nearby in the event of an emergency,” Mayor Moody said.

In police recounts of what happened Monday when the gunman barged in, Vanderpool was the one who stepped forward first to take the gunman down. And the person right beside him, no more than five feet away, was Tracy. The two deaths were the first fatalities on the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department since it was founded in 1939.

Vanderpool had plans for Monday evening. It was Valentine’s Day, but more important, it was his 36th wedding anniversary. He planned to have dinner with his wife, Billy Jean.

But first, there was the training session with his colleagues. It took place at the Torrance Holiday Inn, where, coincidentally, he and Billy Jean six years ago held a reception to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

Vanderpool was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for 10 years before quitting to run a laundry business. But he returned to police work with the Palos Verdes Estates department in 1980.

Promoted in 1986, he was the personnel training sergeant, the reserve coordinator and supervised community relations. He had also played Santa to families for the last seven years, delivering toys, clothing and blankets at Christmas.

Tracy was the kind of guy who last Friday brought flowers to every woman in the Police Department as a Valentine’s gift.

He joined the department in 1969 after a brief stint as a policeman in Garden Grove. Six years later, Tracy was presented with the South Bay Medal of Valor. He also assisted in the recovery of a kidnaped 1-year-old boy in 1986.

Torrance policeman Ed Webb was helping with patrolling duties at Palos Verdes Estates Tuesday in the aftermath of the shootings. He said he had known Tracy for many years and characterized him as a “take-charge kind of guy.”

And of his attempt to disarm the gunman, Webb said, “that sounds just like his style.”

“I’d like them to be remembered as heroes,” Johansen said. “They stepped in, in front of a guy with a gun in each hand who was threatening 13 people in that room, and their actions saved our lives.”

Times staff writer J. Michael Kennedy contributed to this story.