Arcadia Police Department

In the last year, the Arcadia Police Department has been hit by four separate claims of racial and sexual discrimination. Those filing the claims accuse the city's 73-member force of unfairly targeting young people, minorities and the department's own female officers for harassment and discrimination. The accusations are detailed in a $1-million claim against the city, a federal discrimination complaint and two recent lawsuits, including one seeking $1 million in damages.

A former police trainee has accused the Arcadia Police Department of firing her for complaining that officers watched pornographic movies on duty, uttered racial epithets and sexually harassed her. Deborah Pierce, 29, of Glendora filed the complaint Monday with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC), the federal civil rights agency. City Atty. Mike Miller declined comment, saying the city has not received a copy of the complaint.

The county Board of Supervisors has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people who defaced the Arcadia home of Brian Berger, director of the county Animal Control Department. The board action last week also makes available to the Arcadia Police Department help from the district attorney's office and the Sheriff's Department in investigating the case.

When Neal Johnson joined the Arcadia Police Department in 1956 as a patrolman, there were 22 officers in the department serving a population of about 30,000. Now, as the new police chief, Johnson oversees 71 sworn officers who serve 46,000 residents. The strawberry fields that dotted the foothills are gone, but Johnson said Arcadia is still basically the same bedroom community with the same crime problems it had when he joined the department. Johnson, 51, who was named police chief Nov.

A group of armed, would-be robbers apparently picked on the wrong man Wednesday evening when they tangled with an off-duty police officer standing in front of a Pasadena karate studio, police said Thursday. In the ensuing shootout, police said, the officer, who works undercover for the Arcadia Police Department, was wounded. But they said he fired his .45-caliber handgun, killing one assailant and wounding another as two or three accomplices ran to a car and fled.

One woman thought the slayings of two Temple City teen-agers and their grandmother were connected with a string of killings and assaults that has caused increasing anxiety among residents of this upper-middle-class community. Another had heard rumors that children were being snatched off bicycles and abducted. A third had heard that people were being followed home from Santa Anita Fashion Park, a major shopping center here.

Arcadia Police Chief Ronnie Garner is reconsidering his plans to travel with a detective to Taiwan on city time in October to learn about the culture and organized crime. Organized Asian crime has made inroads into Arcadia, where one of five residents is of Chinese descent. The City Council delayed a vote on the trip until the chief could provide more details. Although the trip would be financed by donations, some council members questioned how the expense would look to taxpayers.

Arcadia police on Monday defended their pursuit of a woman that ended when she crashed into another car, killing a 3-year-old boy inside. Talmin Moye Jr. was taken off life support late Sunday, hours after he and his father were struck while heading to a pancake breakfast. Authorities said they consider the boy's death a tragedy, but said it would have been irresponsible for the officers to have halted the pursuit because the woman was driving recklessly.

Arcadia officials have imposed a temporary moratorium on massage therapy licenses amid concerns that the upscale town is becoming an unwitting capital of the massage. In the last three years, the San Gabriel Valley city has granted 700 such licenses. Last year, it gave out 175, and on a single day this year, Sept. 15, the city received 12 inquiries for applications for new massage therapy licenses. Officials said that is too many for the city of 55,000 residents.

The Arcadia Police Department has appointed Emmanuel Chan, a reserve officer for 13 years, as an unpaid liaison officer with the Asian community. Police Chief Neal Johnson said the volunteer position was created in response to the changing ethnic makeup of the city. Chan, who was born in the Philippines, speaks several Asian languages and dialects.