Police, Residents Launch New Effort Aimed at Curbing Crime : Neighborhoods: An oath is administered to 335 'community representatives' during a festive ceremony at Cal State Northridge.

By JIM HERRON ZAMORA

Nov. 17, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Launching what law enforcement officials called the city’s largest experiment in community-based policing, more than 300 San Fernando Valley residents vowed Saturday to create a “crime-resistant society” and to forge a new partnership with Los Angeles police.

The program is one of the more dramatic steps taken by the Los Angeles Police Department to restore its damaged reputation and repair its relationship with residents in the wake of the Rodney King beating in Lake View Terrace in March.

Under the ambitious effort, 335 “community representatives” will work more than 1,000 block captains to report crimes in their neighborhoods and to teach fellow citizens how to prevent crime. Eventually, organizers hope to have a block captain assigned to every block in the Valley.

In a festive 20-minute ceremony attended by more than 500 people at the football field at Cal State Northridge, Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker outlined the goals of the program and administered a brief oath to the community representatives.

The ceremony at times resembled a pep rally as Kroeker, the top police official in the Valley, urged the crowd to join 31 senior lead officers who will coordinate the program in hopes of making “your neighborhoods part of a fully crime-resistant society.”

“You are ambassadors to the people who live here. These are your people,” Kroeker told the cheering crowd. “This is your turf. It belongs to the taxpayers. . . . This is your police department.”

The program, Kroeker said, hopes to address deficiencies in the Police Department that were detailed in the Christopher Commission report, which urged police to spend more time communicating with residents. The department’s combative philosophy has created ill will in many sectors of Los Angeles, the report found.

While all of the city’s four patrol bureaus are attempting to increase police interaction with residents, the Valley program aims to establish a new line of communication--patterned loosely on Neighborhood Watch--that extends from Kroeker’s office to the block captains.

Since May the senior lead officers have spent most of their time in community relations duty in 31 reporting districts, the police equivalent of a census tract, from the hills of Chatsworth to the flatlands in Pacoima. Previously, the officers spent a handful of hours in such work each month.

Each reporting district is divided into smaller units, each with its own community representative. The representatives volunteered at community meetings or were referred to police through neighborhood groups.

They serve as a liaison between the senior lead officers, the block captains, Neighborhood Watch and other community organizations. Nearly all of the 335 community representatives have been selected and are helping police recruit block captains.

The program is similar to Neighborhood Watch but aims to be more thorough--and with clearer lines of communication and responsibility, Kroeker said. Block captains, for example, are supposed to report suspicious activity or crimes to the community representatives, who in turn will contact the senior lead officer.

The program does not take the place of 911 in emergencies, but encourages residents to bring their concerns to a specific officer who patrols and supervises other officers in the area.

“We want officers to feel a sense of direct accountability,” Kroeker said. “We want people to recognize us and see a face, see a human being.”

Kroeker hopes to build upon the work of existing Neighborhood Watch groups, which are present throughout the San Fernando Valley. “We have been rather sporadic in how we have organized community volunteers,” Kroeker said. “In some areas Neighborhood Watch was effective; in others it didn’t work so well. We want to spread it to every corner of the Valley.”

Major components of the new program have already been functioning in some Valley areas, particularly the Devonshire Division.

Senior Lead Officer John Girard said a recent burglary in the Devonshire Division showed how the system could work throughout the Valley. A resident called the community representative one morning to say he knew who was behind a recent rash of burglaries. The representative quickly called Girard, who alerted patrol officers.

Police saw the man driving down the street, pulled him over and found items reported stolen from three nearby residences. When officers later searched his house, they found property taken from four other residences.

“We had him in jail within 24 hours,” Girard said. “It was like a textbook Neighborhood Watch.”

The community representatives have various reasons for joining the program.

“I’m scared and I’m tired of being scared,” said Joe Zelenis, 37, a disabled sales agent from Reseda, as he sat in his wheelchair. “I refuse to live in fear any more.”

Barbara Hubbard, 37, a longtime activist from Lake View Terrace, sees the program as a way to heal the scars left by the King beating, which occurred a mile from her home.

“It shocked us into realizing we need to work on our relationship with police,” Hubbard said. “The whole community was traumatized. But after the initial shock wore off, a lot of people have pulled together and said ‘Let’s fix the problem.’ ”

For Hubbard, who proudly boasts that after several months police and residents are “starting to speak the same language a little bit,” her new volunteer job is a labor of love.

“It’s something we do for love,” Hubbard said. “We really love Lake View Terrace and we want it to be the best possible place to live.”

Peter Smith, a 72-year-old retiree who has lived in the same Panorama City home for the past 40 years, had never done anything like this before. But now he’s ready. he said. “Somebody has to do it.”