Police Community Relations

Lorene Grant, a 59-year-old mother of seven and grandmother of "30-some," sat outside the front door of her small apartment in the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts recently and gave her assessment of the "neighbors" who moved in next door three months ago. "Well, they're getting a little more polite," Grant said. "Some of them are beginning to recognize that you're a senior citizen and that they can speak to you without wanting to go upside your head."

This month, patrol officers in the Pasadena Police Department tried something new: They went door to door, introducing themselves, handing out business cards and saying hello. Some residents greeted them with mouths hanging open, interim Chief Christopher Vicino said. Others wanted to know what the trouble was that brought the police to their door. The 10-hour "community day," in which officers sought to build relationships with the residents in neighborhoods they patrol across the city, was one of the new measures sparked in part by a watchdog report that reviewed a fatal police shooting of a man during a traffic stop one year ago. Going door-to-door was an idea proposed by the officers' union, Vicino said.

Several community leaders and heads of organizations voice positive opinions on community-based policing in the San Fernando Valley, though few know about it in detail. A sampling of views: * "I think there has been progress made," said Jose DeSosa, a Valley resident and state president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. He reports improvement in the relationship between police and the community, particularly in the Valley, since the Rodney G. King beating.

The U.S. Department of Justice has found significant flaws in the way Inglewood police oversee use-of-force incidents and investigate complaints against officers and has proposed a host of reforms to help ease fear and distrust among city residents. As part of a comprehensive review of the department, which is ongoing, Justice Department officials found that Inglewood's policies on the use of force are poorly written and legally inadequate despite recent reform efforts. In a letter sent to the city's mayor in December, federal officials called for numerous changes in the way the department trains and investigates its officers.

One year to the day after Los Angeles police officers beat Rodney G. King and sent the LAPD and the city into convulsions, more than 500 residents of South-Central gathered in a school auditorium for a meeting they hoped would usher in a more productive era in police-community relations. In those days, Chief Daryl F. Gates was hanging on for his professional life, and the city's faith in its police had plummeted to record lows.

Concerned that community policing has faltered in Los Angeles with the reassignment of 180 senior lead officers from the program, a City Council panel asked the LAPD on Monday to develop a new plan for improving the working relationship between officers and residents. The vote followed the release Monday of a USC survey that found less than half of Los Angeles residents think the LAPD is doing a "good or very good" job.

To Los Angeles neighborhoods where crime has shredded the social order, now comes community-based policing--an idea that is at once disturbingly vague, tantalizingly hopeful and eagerly embraced by people with vastly different notions of what it entails. To Ping Own, a Taiwanese immigrant with an auto service center near Los Angeles Harbor, it means clearing out the day laborers who gather on the curb outside his business and scare away his customers.

One intersection. Seven unsolved homicides. That's the tally for the cross streets of San Pedro and 84th dating to the late 1980s. The spot is typical of many in South and Central Los Angeles where extraordinary numbers of people are murdered and the killers are never caught. Unsolved homicides -- killings for which no suspect is ever arrested -- are stacked up block by block, mile by mile, in this part of Los Angeles.

The Police Department is starting a program that will enlist volunteers to check the homes of vacationing residents, said Police Capt. Dave Abrecht. The program, "Volunteers in Policing--VIP's," is part of the community policing philosophy adopted by the Police Department last year, Abrecht said. It encourages partnerships between police and residents, he added. More volunteers are needed to implement the program, Abrecht said.

I remember the show ran on Monday nights and I remember my father loved it. He was the family's biggest fan of "Dragnet." My mother refused to watch, probably on religious grounds, but the rest of us did, every week. "Dragnet" was part of our routine. That took place in Memphis, Tenn., 1953 or '54. We had one of the first TV sets on the block and "Dragnet" was our introduction to California. We saw palm trees growing out of the sidewalks and crooks wearing Hawaiian shirts.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Thursday the creation of a city anti-gang academy to train and license intervention workers. The crucial component of L.A.'s anti-gang strategy was delayed for months because of conflicting visions for the school. The academy will be run by the Advancement Project, a legal advocacy, civil rights and public policy group, and funded in its inaugural year with $200,000 in federal grants. The city-sponsored academy will train all anti-gang workers involved with Villaraigosa's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, which oversees $20 million in annual intervention and prevention contracts.

Los Angeles County's gun exchange program collected 5,337 weapons in 2009, including 144 assault-style rifles. The Sheriff's Department and supporters of the "gifts for guns" program handed out more than $428,100 in gift cards throughout the year at supermarket parking lots around the county in exchange for the weapons. "I tell the deputies if it is a gun that could harm one of our deputies, then it is a gun we want off the street," said Lt. Anthony Lucia, who oversaw the collection of 281 weapons this week at a Ralphs market in Compton.

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Obama. Powell, interviewed by CNN's Larry King, cited times when he was a victim of racial profiling -- including as national security advisor. Sometimes, he said, you just have to let it slide. The confrontation between Gates, a noted black scholar, and white police Sgt.

To some police officers, President Obama was merely speaking the truth about how a certain department behaved in a difficult situation. To others, he committed the unpardonable sin of sticking his nose where it does not belong. When Obama accused Cambridge, Mass., police officers Wednesday of acting "stupidly" when they arrested his friend, Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Los Angeles police are riding a crest of goodwill that has pushed the department's popularity to levels not sustained since the late 1980s as cops continue to post gains on fighting crime and building closer ties with the people they serve.

After several years of court-ordered reforms, the Los Angeles Police Department has heightened its image among Angelenos and made significant improvements in the performance and attitudes of its officers, according to a new Harvard University study released Monday. In asking for the study and giving researchers unusual access to the department, LAPD Chief William J.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters on Tuesday led about 20 angry residents of the Imperial Courts housing project to the Los Angeles Police Commission, where they accused police of continually harassing and abusing tenants in the sprawling complex. "Please call off the dogs," the Los Angeles Democrat told commission members. "Keep them from abusing the people." Waters and the residents alleged that, since the Nov.

The citizen advisory group charged with assessing the state of police-community relations in San Diego got an earful Thursday night when Southeast San Diego residents turned out 200 strong and pronounced the condition of relations nil. "I don't think in this neighborhood there are any relations between citizens and the police," Janet Aburto informed the Citizens Advisory Board on Police-Community Relations. Her opinion was repeated over and over at the public forum in Encanto.

On the last afternoon of his life, Bernard Monroe was hosting a cookout for family and friends in front of his dilapidated home in this small northern Louisiana town. Throat cancer had left the 73-year-old retired electric utility worker unable to talk, but family members said he clearly was enjoying the commotion of a dozen of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren cavorting in the grassless yard.

Adrianne Sears said she felt powerless and frustrated last summer when Inglewood residents angrily demanded to know why police in the span of four months had fatally shot four men -- three of whom were unarmed. As chairwoman of the Citizen Police Oversight Commission, residents expected that she and other commissioners would have answers. But they had none. "We should have been in the know, and, of course, we weren't," Sears said.