Parks’ Community Policing Criticized by Area Residents

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, in the San Fernando Valley on Monday to explain his new approach to community-based policing, instead got an earful of angry complaints from residents who predicted that the changes will sever their ties with local officers and reduce--not increase--police responsiveness to their needs.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Van Nuys resident Jack Rohan told Parks, to applause from a partisan crowd of about 100 residents and 200 students gathered at Monroe High School.

But the city’s top cop stood his ground, saying that his changes would make community-minded thinking the rule throughout the department, not just the responsibility of a small minority of officers assigned to deal with neighborhood problems.

“It’s interesting . . . that so many people have decided it’s a failure before they have a clue to what we’re going to do,” Parks said.

“We hope those who have reservations will allow themselves to continue working with us.”

Parks’ controversial plan would put senior lead officers, currently the key police contacts for local residents, back out on the street as patrol officers and mentors for rookie cops. Replacing them as community liaisons will be sergeants, each of whom will oversee two squad cars.

Stickers declaring “Save Our Senior Leads” were attached to many of the lapels of the residents who attended the meeting at Monroe of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, where Parks gave an update on his modifications to the community policing program.

Alexandra Hopkins, president of a North Hollywood Neighborhood Watch group, recounted the success she has had in dealing directly with her community’s senior lead officer, saying the officer was a trouble-shooter who has responded promptly and effectively to her needs.

“The senior lead officer always returns my phone calls. The senior lead officer always goes out and talks to the residents who are having loud parties,” Hopkins said. “We know we can rely on her. . . . She knows us. She takes us seriously.”

Replacing that officer with a sergeant consumed by paperwork and other duties would eliminate the immediate police access the community needs, Hopkins said.

“No one will be accountable,” she said. “We want a face to the city. The senior lead officer was our face to the city.”

Page Miller, a Valley Village Neighborhood Watch activist, accused Parks of phasing out the senior leads while pretending “to exalt them” as training officers for junior partners.

“Please don’t take the senior lead officers out of the partnership with this community, but integrate the trainees into the senior lead program that already exists--a very successful program,” she said.

Miller also maintained that removing her senior lead officer spelled the end of monthly meetings between police and residents in her neighborhood, a monthly public safety newsletter and direct voice-mail access to the senior lead to report problems and raise questions.

But Parks disputed those claims. “If someone’s told you that, that is false,” he said, adding that the senior lead officers “are not going anywhere. They’re not leaving their divisions.”

The challenge, he said, is to create an invigorated community-based policing system that will involve more members of the force than the 160 officers now included.

Parks had a supporter in Bill Huber, a retired Winnetka teacher and a member of his community police advisory board. Huber said the chief’s reorganization will return more experienced officers to the streets and streamline the LAPD’s bureaucracy.

“It’s an absolutely terrific idea,” Huber said. “For our purposes it’s a big step forward.”