[img]1663|right|Don Pedersen||no_popup[/img]Asst. Inspector Gen. Don Pedersen, the second longest serving Culver City Police Chief in late history, is a week and a half into his new appointment, following a weekend of abbreviated retirement, April 12-13.
Chief Pedersen and his new boss, County Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman, are jointly setting sail into quite uncharted enforcement waters – overseeing the actions of one of the country’s most criticized Sheriff’s Depts.
The chief’s working hours will not be nearly as placid as the eight years he spent on the second story of the P.D. building on Duquesne Avenue. Success of the Huntsman-Pedersen oversight team will not be a secret. If you are reading about the still-unchosen new sheriff and his boys as much next year as you have about the departed Lee Baca and his tainted underlings this year – the pace of chin-stroking will greatly accelerate.
“We will be evaluating incidents that occur within the department,” Mr. Pedersen said this morning. “We will look pro-actively at recommendations and making changes in policies and procedures.”
In his new downtown setting, the chief will divide his day behind a desk, and out among undoubtedly wary deputies.
How did Mr. Pedersen’s new appointment develop?
“I had heard about this opportunity,” he said. “Then I had a meeting with Max Huntsman. We met a couple of different times. There was mutual interest, and he wound up offering me the position.”
The draw of the new position for Mr. Pedersen was cerebral.
Emphasizing that he and Mr. Huntsman are launching an unprecedented enterprise, “what really is fascinating is that he and I are going to create something from nothing. This is an office that is going to do oversight. But we don’t have a staff yet. We are in the process of hiring people and developing our own policies and procedures to see how this is going to be done.
“The answer is they are asking to be part of something that has yet to be created,” Mr. Pedersen said.
Just two other persons have been hired so far.
Persons close to Mr. Pedersen entertain not a doubt that he will conquer his new challenge. Thirteen years ago, stricken with throat cancer, he was given three months to live.
