Arming Residents With New Outlook on Police Work : Training: Course familiarizes people with LAPD operations, including arrest procedures, use of force and shooting policies. ‘The most surprising thing I learned is that police are human,’ a graduate says.

At the academy, her police instructor nicknamed her Annie Oakley because of her quick aim on the firing range.

And Ruby Maillian promises she’ll be just as fast with a rebuttal from now on when she hears people bad-mouthing the Los Angeles Police Department in her neighborhood near Florence and Normandie avenues--a flash point of the 1992 riots.

Maillian was among the first 66 graduates Saturday of the department’s Community Police Academy--part of the community-based policing overhaul of the LAPD launched after the beating of Rodney G. King.

Its 30-hour curriculum--which includes the computer-simulated target-pistol demonstration that Maillian excelled at--is designed to familiarize city residents with police operations. It covers such things as arrest procedures, use of force and shooting policies.

Graduates won’t be armed and won’t carry badges. But they will be equipped to help put an end to myths that circulate about the police in some communities, Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker said.

“You’re armed with the facts at a time when misinterpretation can drive communities apart,” he told graduates as they received diplomas in a ceremony at the Police Academy near Downtown.

*

Police Capt. Alan Kerstein said: “When you’re in a supermarket line and you hear somebody say, ‘They didn’t need to handcuff that man like they did,’ you’ll be able to talk intelligently and with firsthand experience.”

Misconceptions about the police abound, graduates acknowledged.

“The most common in my area is that you can never get a police officer to come when you call,” said Raymond Boykin, 50, a disabled South-Central maintenance man. “I’ll tell them calls are taken by priority, that if you call about a trash can it’s one thing, but if you call about a man with a gun it’s another.”

Some also feel that police come into the community to harass residents, Boykin added. “No, they come to solve problems: The most surprising thing I learned is that police are human.”

Watts resident Barbara Kennedy, 35, said the course cleared up a few of her own misconceptions--”like when somebody dies, why they leave them so long on the ground.”

The reason, she learned, is that homicide investigations require such time-consuming procedures as evidence gathering and crime scene photography.

“There’s an anti-police attitude in my community. Maybe I can open some eyes,” said Kennedy, a jobs placement coordinator who lives in the Imperial Courts housing project.

“I have a different attitude about police now. A better attitude.”

Officials said they intend for the academy to be an ongoing program. They hope to expand it next spring to the San Fernando Valley, the Westside and Central City.

“We’d like to put everyone in L.A. through this,” Kerstein said Saturday.

*

If implemented citywide, the Community Police Academy could become a centerpiece of the department’s move toward community-based policing, which focuses on preventing crime rather than simply arresting criminals.

Such efforts can be traced to the 1970s, when then-Chief Ed Davis established Neighborhood Watch and began experimenting with a policing program called the “basic car plan” that assigned specific officers to neighborhoods.

Those programs were de-emphasized in the 1980s by his successor, Daryl F. Gates, who favored a tougher, sometimes militaristic style of law enforcement. After the beating of King, the riots and Gates’ departure, Chief Willie L. Williams revived the community-based policing concept.

In December, Williams revealed his blueprint for community policing, which focused on new citizen involvement in the department, including the use of community councils, advisory panels and citizen volunteers.

Saturday’s graduates said the Community Police Academy course has convinced them to sign up as department volunteers.

“There’s not enough policemen out here. There’s a lot of work they do that we should be doing,” said Raymond Clark, a 37-year-old automotive parts salesman from Wilmington.

Henry Terrell, 48, a resource information specialist from South-Central, said: “We’ll put civilians on the inside and officers on the outside. I’m willing to do paperwork, to participate any way I can to get officers on the street.”

*

A crowd of friends and family members watched Maillian, 64, receive her Community Police Academy diploma from Chief Williams. “This will go on the wall at the ‘national gallery of art’ at my house,” she joked.

Maillian said she has supported the police since 1968--when Officer Oscar Joel Bryant was shot to death while arresting four suspected robbers near her home.

“They put the command post by my house,” Maillian said. “This was before Winchell’s began giving away doughnuts to police. My husband and I fixed tuna sandwiches, coffee and cocoa for the police.”

But Maillian emphasized that she will not hesitate to criticize police if she feels it’s necessary. “If a policeman is out of line, I’ll be the first one to speak up,” she promised.

That suits Williams fine, he said.

“They are not cheerleaders,” he said of the graduates. “They’ll tell us when we’re wrong.

“This is a chance for us to listen to our customers. Our constituents.”