Need Seen for More Officers From Armenia

Many Armenian American residents of Glendale once lived in Yerevan, Beirut, Baghdad, and Tehran, cities not known for helpful, honest, nonthreatening police departments.

Fearsome late-night knocks on the door, shakedowns and bribe-taking darkened those departments’ reputations.

A lingering image of corruption in uniform is one reason there are so few Armenian American officers in Glendale, according to police administrators and community leaders. Another reason, some residents say, is harassment of Armenians by the Glendale police.

In a city with roughly 45,000 residents of Armenian descent, who make up nearly 25% of the local population, only seven of the Glendale Police Department’s 239 officers are Armenian Americans.

“Police work is not a traditional job Armenians are attracted to,” said Alex Sardar of the Armenian National Committee of America, which has its western headquarters in Glendale. “You have to keep in mind many come from . . . places [where] law enforcement is not necessarily a positive thing.”

Glendale Police Chief Russell Siverling said he hopes to change that perception, in part by stepping up the recruitment of Armenian Americans.

“We are certainly in need of a greater number of bilingual Armenian-speaking officers in the community,” Siverling said.

The chief added that he is counting on the department’s Explorer and cadet programs to draw young Armenian Americans to the force. Those who join the programs “get to see it’s a challenging and worthwhile profession,” he said.

One former cadet is Officer Tigran Topadzhikyan, a native of Yerevan, the Armenian capital, who arrived in Glendale 21 years ago. Topadzhikyan, 26, said he has a good rapport with Armenians he encounters on patrol. Speaking Armenian helps.

“A lot of people say they are glad an Armenian officer came out to help,” Topadzhikyan said. “Some of them have a hard time communicating. The department’s relationship with the Armenian public is good, but could be better.

Members of Armenian Power, the Glendale and Hollywood street gang known as AP, sometimes play on Topadzhikyan’s nationality in a bid for leniency, the officer said.

“The AP guys sometimes say ‘Come on, give me a break,’ ” Topadzhikyan said. “They try to put the Armenian thing on me, ‘You’re Armenian. I’m Armenian.’ . . . I tell them crime has no color.

“In Armenia, they don’t trust the police,” he added. “So when they come here, many carry that belief with them.”

That mistrust, some say, is not a one-way street. Critics of the department say there are officers who simply dislike Armenians and view them as intruders.

“I feel there is discrimination by police against the Armenian population in this city,” said Bedros Hajian, 39, a chaplain with the Armenian Angelical Social Service Center in Glendale. “The person who wants to keep being Armenian, to keep his culture, his language, is being harassed. To get more Armenians on the force, they have to start treating people with respect.”

A Cal State Northridge student agrees. “I think there is a lot of racial tension going on,” said Anna Menedjian, 20, a law clerk in Glendale.

Menedjian cites an incident involving her cousin. David Menedjian, 17, was handcuffed and detained March 16 at Hoover High School after the police said they suspected he had cocaine and a bomb in his Chevrolet Tahoe, she recounted. The suspected contraband turned out to be sugar and a car air bag, Anna Menedjian said.

“He was late for school and trying to park his car so he wouldn’t get a parking ticket and they stopped him,” said David Menedjian’s mother, Olga Menedjian. “I think they stopped him just because he was an Armenian driving a nice car.”

Menedjian said she went to police headquarters, complained and threatened to sue, but settled for an apology.

Siverling said he is aware of claims of bias against Armenian Americans.

“I think there is a perception that the Police Department is harder on Armenian folks,” Siverling said. “It comes from a lot of reasons. But Glendale is a zero-tolerance community. Glendale is strict.”

The chief added that the department investigates about 40 officer-misconduct complaints a year, which are not broken down by ethnicity.

“I can’t think of any case where a Glendale officer has been disciplined for an incident dealing with ethnicity,” said Sgt. Gary Montecuollo, the department’s acting spokesman.

A recent monthlong study by the department showed that the number of Armenian Americans arrested was disproportionately lower than their share of the population, Siverling said.

The study determined that those arrested of Armenian descent made up 17% of the city’s total. An earlier study produced an even lower number: 12%.

“It shows the vast majority of Armenians are law-abiding citizens,” Siverling said. “I would just like more of them to join the police.”