Re “In Defense of the Police Chief”
My name is Adam Treanor, and I am the President of the Culver City Police Officers Assn., (CCPOA), an organization that represents 89 members of the Culver City Police Dept., consisting of police officers and sergeants.
In my role as a representative of the fine men and women who constitute the rank and file of this police department, I felt compelled to respond to part two of Interim City Manager Lamont Ewell’s defense of Chief Don Pedersen in the wake of our 86.5% vote of no-confidence in the chief.
My colleagues, CCPOA Vice Presidents Sgt. Brian Fitzpatrick and Officer Charles Koffman, have already submitted op-eds to your online periodical that addressed the issue of Mr. Ewell’s investigation and his findings.
I categorically agree with them on two points; first, that Mr. Ewell’s investigation was far from being thorough and second, that Ewell’s findings fell short of a pursuit of the truth. I won’t, therefore, take more time to discuss Ewell’s inaccurate statements from part one of his interview. Admittedly, those statements were frustrating to me and to many of my fellow members of the Culver City Police Dept. I would hardly describe Mr. Ewell’s investigation as being of “blue-ribbon” quality. He was, after all, not hired for his investigative prowess, but to fill a temporary position that primarily involved handling our city’s financial shortfall, not delving into the heart this problem that has faced the Police Dept. long before Mr. Ewell came to Culver City and one with which we and the community will have to deal now that he is gone.
That being said, I write this in response to the issues Mr. Ewell brought up in parts two and three of your interview.
In Mr. Ewell’s interview, he stated that “The police chief believes strongly in the concept of customer service” and that “this is a philosophical difference with the Police Officers Assn. The union kept telling me that they want to be a pro-active organization and he is trying to make them reactive.” He later states, “Our responsibility, whether in law enforcement or the public sector in general, should always be to provide the highest level of public safety as well as good customer service.”
Maybe because Mr. Ewell has been here such a short time, or because he may not adequately understand law enforcement in general, he makes this poor comparison with a routine public sector position or organization. I can tell you that when it comes to law enforcement, the members of the Culver City Police Dept. absolutely believe in and practice customer service. They also believe that the philosophy of pro-active, effective policing is the highest form of customer service and that these two concepts are not mutually exclusive, as Mr. Ewell seems to suggest. Far from it, our police officers and investigators had been practicing excellent customer service for years before Chief Pedersen’s tenure, making the police service of Culver City one of the prime reasons why people choose to move here, raise a family, or operate a business in this city. Our residents expect it, as they should.
The Culver City Police Dept. takes an active role in attempting to suppress and prevent crime before it negatively affects our citizens and before they become victims of crime. Our officers practice this philosophy in their daily actions, resulting in a service to the community and a level of public safety that is distinctly different from that which is experienced by residents of other cities and jurisdictions across the nation. Culver City police officers work aggressively to protect our citizens from mounting crime, declining quality of life and lengthened response times, all of which are common in many neighboring cities, whose law enforcement agencies perform in a more reactive role. Reactive policing involves officers who merely respond after the fact to take a crime report and then place it in a pile with all of the other investigations.
During our conversation with Mr. Ewell, we did make comparisons to Santa Monica and other municipalities. I have good friends on the Santa Monica Police Dept., and I believe it to be an excellent law enforcement organization. I have even made suggestions to our chief to follow some examples enacted by the Santa Monica Police Dept. We merely explained to Mr. Ewell, because for many reasons including the geography, population and greater radio call service, many cities simply cannot do preventive and effective community pro-active policing in the same manner that the Culver City Police Dept. has traditionally prided itself on. Our community supports the idea and the practice of pro-active policing. However, it seems to be a concept Mr. Ewell has lost.
Mr. Ewell said, “I have also spoken to the attorney who handles claims for the city. Since Chief Pedersen has come here and been making incremental changes, the attorneys told me that claims about profiling and about aggressiveness in the field have gone down.” He goes on in saying, “That is the type of policing you want to see. You want to respect the Fourth Amendment rights of everyone and you also want to help in reducing crime.”
This is a commonly used distraction. We discussed with Mr. Ewell the overall concern about personnel complaints and the similar accusations in law enforcement, an issue that affects every law enforcement agency in the country and not just Culver City. We absolutely agreed with him that oversight is important and departmental investigations are necessary on any police department.
The Culver City Police Dept. has an Internal Affairs Bureau, and our officers demand ethical, professional practices from each other to maintain our reputation in the community. All of our officers would tell you that legitimate complaints are to be investigated, and appropriate discipline is to be meted out to the officer involved. However, Mr. Ewell did agree with us regarding the indisputable fact that if you conduct pro-active policing, making multiple contacts or multiple arrests, you will receive complaints, even though you completely practice ethical, legal and professional policing. Ours is a business that sometimes involves negative contacts and confrontation. It is just that simple. Very few people I have arrested are happy about it or maintain an honest lifestyle of personal accountability for their actions.
Mr. Ewell even agreed that some of these complaints are “red herrings” and used as a vindictive attack on police officers that affect arrests and contact suspects. Having conceded this, did Mr. Ewell entertain the possibility that our police officers, while subjected to low morale and lacking critical field support from the Chief of Police, are perhaps conducting fewer contacts in the field and that might explain fewer complaints rather than some “philosophy” enacted by Chief Pedersen?
(To be concluded on Monday)
Mr. Treanor may be contacted at CCPOA@culvercitypolice.com
