A Loss of Innocence : The slaying of a police officer shakes the illusion of safety in a town that still prides itself on its small- town ways.

People used to think of Glendora as a folksy place, with small-town ways. And it was; it is.

Here, residents show off turn-of-the-century bougainvillea vines, brought to the city by whaling ship and now a state historic landmark. Here, bears and deer wander down from the Angeles National Forest into neighborhoods with Craftsman, Victorian and French Colonial-style homes.

Here, the local newspaper writes not of big-city crime but of small-town musings: “If you see Lee Spengler,” reports this month’s Glendora Community News, “ask him what happened to the chalk machine he borrowed from the Glendora [baseball league].”

But here, now, Glendora is known for this: a sleepy town jolted into the fast lane, its innocence stripped away by a senseless killing.

Schoolchildren tie black ribbons around trees to honor a slain police officer, the first in the city’s history; downtown merchants are wrapping their windows in black; residents who never knew the officer are sending flowers and fruit baskets to the police station, the way people do when there’s a death in the family.

In a way, there was.

On June 9, Officer Louis Pompei was fatally shot when he tried to intervene in a robbery at a Vons supermarket in San Dimas. His slaying was the most recent incident of violence to rattle Glendora.

For all the neighborhood watch groups, for all the community policing, the violent crime still comes, with bewildering force in a place where people once felt safe.

In November, 1994, a 28-year-old armored car guard was shot and killed during a holdup at a Bank of America. In January, 1994, a 77-year-old La Verne minister was fatally stabbed when he tried to stop a robbery at a Glendora family restaurant where he ate almost every day. And lately, police have been trying to keep up with burgeoning methamphetamine labs that make illicit speed (In two years, 1992 and ‘93, police broke up 19 methamphetamine labs).

What happened? When did urban ills creep into a suburb that started so quaintly in the 1880s with a crop of seedling orange trees?

Pompei’s slaying--even though it happened in a neighboring suburb--has forced the city into introspection, into a disturbing realization that even the closest of communities is no longer safe, residents say.

“I think it shakes everyone right down to the core and makes us realize that we’re as vulnerable as anyplace else,” said City Manager Art Cook, who knows each of the police department’s 51 officers by first name, and most of their wives and children. “You tend to sit back and get complacent [about crime]. It takes something like this to really wake you up and say, ‘Hey, it’s out there.”’

After awhile, violence permeates the psyche, makes people feel at risk, residents said on a recent afternoon.

“It’s like, Glendora was viewed as a safe town, and now, it’s not as safe,” said Katie Hawkins, 22, while brewing cappucino at the city’s 222 Espresso Bar. “It makes me feel like it could happen here. Someone could come in here and do a robbery. It makes me a little unsettled.”

Aurelia Almaguer, a 30-year resident, raised three children here, in the days when the sweet smell of orange groves wafted through the rural town.

“You always felt so secure and then, all of a sudden, you wonder, ‘Is it safe anymore?’ ” said Almaguer, 61, who was preparing bouquets at Glendora Florist shop. “It is very disturbing.”

As the state’s suburbs blossomed, Almagauer recalls, orange groves gave way to subdivisions. Now, there are no large orange groves left, and the population has jumped from just under 4,000 in 1950 to 50,543.

Growth brought trouble, Almaguer said. In the old days, she left her front door unlocked while she ran daytime errands and never bothered to close her garage door. About eight years ago, she got a postcard from the police department that said: Hi, we noticed your garage door was open. Please keep it closed for safety reasons.

“I thought, ‘Gosh, what changed that you had to worry about that?”’ Almaguer fretted.

Glendora is nestled in the foothills, more isolated than most San Gabriel Valley suburbs. Most residents live in single-family homes; only 12% of the housing is rental units, according to 1990 census data.

For the most part, Glendora is as safe as any city around, said Police Chief Paul W. Butler. Last year, the city had three homicides, 56 robberies and 190 auto thefts; by contrast, last year, in Los Angeles, with a 3.4-million population, there were 836 homicides, 30,643 robberies and 55,201 auto thefts.

Still, Glendora’s numbers are up. For instance, during the five years from 1989 to 1993, only two homicides were reported.

But there’s no need, Butler said, for residents to launch into a state of hyper-vigilance.

And nobody wants to do that in Glendora, where, on weekends, families pack city parks, head for the mountains and ride horses on the equestrian trails.

“I think it’s a reminder we’re not living in isolation here,” nine-year resident Connie Tiffany said of the officer’s slaying, “but who among us wants to live in a walled-up fortress? It doesn’t make me say, ‘I want to move out of Glendora.”’

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Glendora Inside Out City Business Date founded: April 1, 1887. Area in square miles: 19.15 Number of parks: 10. Number of city employees: 200. 1994-95 budget: $35.2 million. *

Ethnic Makeup White: 78% Other: 1% Asian: 5% Black: 1% Latino: 15% *

People Population: 47,828 Households: 16,343. Average household size: 2.88 Median age: 33.7. *

Money and Work Median household income: $46,116 Meidan home value: $231,619 Employed workers (16 and older); 24,216 Self- empolyed: 2,227 Car- poolers: 3,120 *

Average Yearly Household Expenditures Source: Claritas Inc. Household expenses are averges for 1994. All other figures are for 1990. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number. *

Hey, there’s an empty lot we’d like to sell you in a town full of orange groves and 6,000 baby pepper trees: It was April 1, 1887, but businessman Jefferson Patten was no fool-he paid $400 for the first lot in Glendora at a public sale. *

How Glendora narrowly escaped being called Glenlea: Founder George Whitcomb, a retired Chicago businessman, named the city by combining the word “glen,” meaning secluded valley, and “dora” from the last part of his wife’s name, Leadora. *

City motto: “Pride of the Foothills.” *

Bet You Didn’t Know: According to local legend, an old oak tre sat behind Glendora’s first City Hall, built in 1913 at Glendora and Bennett avenues. Its nickname: The Hanging Tree. Word is that a man was arrested for stealing a horse and another man’s wife. He was promptly hanged on the designated tree -for horse stealing, only. *

People still whisper about the old Colby ranch house, which was built around 1890 on Bennett Avenue as part of a 40-acre homestead. Some say a baby died in the nursery, and the mother’s ghost walks the house at night. Others speak of a harmless male ghost nicknamed “Herman.”