Westminster Police Chief Armed With Fresh Ideas

To his supporters, Westminster Police Chief James Cook belongs to a rare breed of leaders whose blend of practicality and creativity brings out the best in his crew, resulting in innovative programs that are copied throughout the United States.

To critics, he is a pusher of limits who is continually walking a fine line between what’s legal and what’s moral, between what is effective and what is fair.

The chief sees himself as a little of both.

“When you’re on the edge, in the gray area, you’re going to draw criticisms,” Cook said matter-of-factly. “But that’s how you get things done, a problem solved. . . . You keep working at it and working at it, and you try new ways of working at it until it works.”

The latest program to draw criticism is the fledgling Police/Business Empowered Partnership, which allows businesses to buy police overtime to increase security. A real estate manager already signed up to pay $38,000 for 1,200 hours of extra police protection at the Westminster Center shopping center, and more businesses are expected to follow suit.

Legal experts say it is a dangerous precedent to allow someone to buy more police protection from a governmental agency that is supposed to provide the same amount of services to everyone.

“My major concern is from a fairness point of view,” said Todd Brower, a constitutional law professor at the Western State University College of Law in Fullerton.

“Traditionally, police service is thought of as a service to the public as a whole, not individuals. [Cook’s] program strays from that idea. It’s essentially saying that individuals, or in this case, businesses, can buy those services. Well, what if you can’t afford to buy those services?”

Cook and shop owners said the program, approved by the City Council in February, ultimately provides protection for everyone in the city, and doesn’t add more load on taxpayers.

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Armed with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in public service and criminal justice, Cook admits he’s more of a “program person” than most chiefs.

By far, one of his most successful initiatives is TARGET (Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team), a pioneering anti-gang unit which has been replicated throughout Orange County and other cities, including Phoenix and Denver. Combining police detectives with prosecutors and probation officers, the program reduced gang crime in Westminster by about 50% since its inception in 1992, according to the department’s data.

In his eight-page resume, Cook lists TARGET as one of the major accomplishments of his career. Yet when asked about the highlights of his years as a police officer, the first thing that came to mind for the 35-year veteran was a fleeting moment in 1970 when a man he didn’t recognize spotted him at a restaurant and decided to pay for his lunch.

“He just wanted to thank me for helping his son,” Cook said. “I didn’t even know who the person was. He just shook my hand and left.”

Such moments capture his heart. But at the moment, his heart is in a domestic violence program mirroring TARGET, combining police, prosecutors and social workers to put batterers behind bars. Already, prosecutors are filing more domestic violence cases in the first six months of the program than the previous year, according to Doug Kent, researcher for the department.

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Garden Grove Police Chief Stan Knee described Cook as “a thinking chief.”

“He’s one of the best chiefs in the county,” Knee said. “He is constantly looking at what’s going on around him, cataloging the problems in his mind and putting together ways to deal with them.

“And what he does, he does not only for Westminster, he does it for the entire county.”

Cook’s dedication to law enforcement had its roots in his childhood.

“I remember looking at law enforcement at a very, very young age,” he said. “I thought to myself--that’s where you are needed and you did a public service. You helped people.”

At 14, his mother died of emphysema, driving Cook to enter Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home in Nebraska, known as Boys Town, a center for troubled and orphaned children. The experience further solidified his passion for police work, particularly in areas dealing with young people.

“I never would have made it without Boys Town,” he said. “Those years gave me a sense of empathy for young people who are trying to get through very, very difficult years. . . . But it also taught me that kids need to be dealt with in the strictest of measures.

“I was always testing the limits myself,” Cook said.

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As chief, he occasionally still tests limits. But now, they are tested in order to solve problems, not create them.

One program that made critics edgy was a 1993 city injunction spearheaded by Cook to ban 59 members of the West Trece gang from “standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view” within a 25-block area. Superior Judge Richard J. Beacom struck it down, calling it unconstitutional. His ruling is under appeal.

Cook said the move would have prevented crime. During the short-lived injunction, Cook said “there was virtually no gang crime.”

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court upheld a similar injunction in San Jose.

That ruling entered Cook’s mind on a recent afternoon. Smiling, he leaned back in his chair and said, “You’re going to see more cities taking that route and we’ll be the first Orange County city to do it.”