Police Chief Won’t Enforce Prop. 187 Until Courts Rule : Laws: Garden Grove’s Stanley L. Knee tells panel that immigrants’ trust is needed to help fight crime.

Saying everybody deserves police protection, including illegal immigrants, Garden Grove Police Chief Stanley L. Knee told the Orange County Human Relations Commission here Thursday that his department will not enforce Proposition 187 until the courts rule on its constitutionality.

Knee said the controversial ballot initiative approved by voters presents a dilemma to law enforcement agencies that have worked hard to win the trust of immigrant communities. In Garden Grove, officers have worked to establish an outreach program in the Latino community, Knee said, crediting the program with helping to lower the city’s crime rate by 15% this year. Emphasizing that every citizen deserves police protection, Knee said: “This is something that nags at my heart. When I say everybody, I mean even everybody who is here under questionable legal status.

“If we allow local law enforcement agencies to become part of the immigration solution,” he said, “we will break the circle that has come together to fight crime. We need everybody in the community to trust the police.”

He said that unless the courts uphold Proposition 187, his department would not enforce the provision requiring law enforcement agencies to report criminals who are illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Knee also stressed that even if the measure is upheld, Proposition 187 does not require police to report crime victims or witnesses who are illegal immigrants to the INS.

“If a person witnesses a crime, he should feel comfortable coming to the police,” Knee said.

But he warned that if people “perceive the police as an arm of the INS, they’re going to turn their back on law enforcement.”

Knee spoke at a commission meeting that was billed as a dialogue between proponents and opponents of Proposition 187. However, the meeting attracted not one supporter of the initiative.

Knee and representatives from other public agencies addressed the panel to explain how they are implementing the proposition, which was approved by California voters in November.

Like Knee, the other representatives said their agencies would not enforce provisions until all legal challenges to the measure are heard.

However, all of the other speakers from the community attacked Proposition 187 as divisive or racist.

Dr. Jack Kent said he treats mostly elderly and poor Latino patients at the Edward Roybal Health Center in Los Angeles. Proposition 187 denies most medical care and education to illegal immigrants.

“(Proponents of 187) do not have a right to tell me I must deny treatment to any of my patients,” Kent said. “I will not participate in a process to deny health care and education to anyone.”

Ramiro Rubio, who said he is an immigrant, offered an impassioned plea for tolerance in the wake of 187, and accused proponents of turning on immigrants in order “to find the final solution to the problem.”

“The message (of 187) is that we’re intolerant,” Rubio said. “But I am a member of this society too. I know I’m valuable to this society.”