BREA : Police Chief Forkus Will Retire Monday

Police Chief Donald L. Forkus will retire Monday, exchange his badge for a fishing pole and move to the Big Sky country of Montana.

Forkus, 50, said recurring health problems and a wish to spend more time with his family prompted him to bring his 28-year career with the Brea Police Department to a close.

The lifelong Brea resident joined the department when he was 22, was voted Officer of the Year at 23, and after moving up the ranks was named chief at 32.

He later gained statewide recognition as president of the California Peace Officers Assn. and as chairman of an advisory board that helped distribute millions of dollars in assets seized from drug traffickers to police agencies.

Forkus also served as an adviser to state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and implemented various community-based policing programs in Brea and neighboring Yorba Linda, which gets its police service from Brea under contract.

“We’ve come a long way. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean that,” Forkus said in praising co-workers who helped Brea’s Police Department grow from 26 sworn officers to 106 over the past three decades.

Forkus has watched the community evolve “from a quiet little country town to a quiet little city town.”

He recalls when there was only one traffic light in the city and when he could ride horseback through citrus groves and hunt pheasant and quail in the Brea foothills.

“Those days are gone,” Forkus said.

As for changes in crime patterns over the years, Forkus said that when he first joined the department, narcotics arrests were on the rise because marijuana usage was becoming common. During the early 1970s, residential burglaries were “really going out of sight.” That led to the creation of Neighborhood Watch programs.

Currently, local crime is more “white collar” and high-tech in nature, Forkus said, citing the recent theft of $250,000 in computer chips from a business in northeast Brea.

On a personal level, Forkus admitted that the responsibilities of a stressful, high-profile job took their toll. One of his most trying times came when he made the decision to shoot a mountain lion that had wandered into a residential area of Yorba Linda in 1988. Even though the lion was killed to protect schoolchildren, Forkus received a tremendous amount of public criticism--even death threats.

Another low point occurred in 1992 when he was hospitalized with chest pains and upper respiratory problems. His heart proved to be OK, but he was suffering from stress-induced asthma and high blood pressure.

“That was disappointing to me,” Forkus said.

“My doctor said, ‘You really should consider hanging it up.’ I wasn’t going to argue with him anymore.”

Forkus said he will now be free to spend more time with his wife, Karen, and three children--Dawn, a court reporter living in Costa Mesa; Kris, a Brea resident who just graduated from law school, and Kenny, a police officer in Haywood.

As for the Police Department, Forkus said he is confident it is as strong as ever. It is now headed by Capt. Jim Oman as acting chief.

“I’m not leaving with any agendas undone,” Forkus said. “They’ll do fine without me. And that’s the greatest legacy you can leave.”