The two spoke only briefly. That apparently is the limit for now. The new chief has no formal plans to walk into the department, in all likelihood, until after his hiring is in writing.
That will not happen until the results of Mr. Pedersen’s battery of tests have been judged and filed.
The Sounds of Clash?
Sideline observers figure that interesting sounds will swirl through the air when the sedate-sounding new chief meets the riled-up regulars of the department.
Displaying varying degrees of disappointment over the failure of their in-house candidate to win the job, some officers have spoken loudly and mockingly, fraternity-style, about their new chief.
One veteran described the mood of his fellow officers to “what a classroom full of boys is like when the teacher steps away for a few minutes. Things get out of hand.
“Pedersen should know what he is getting into. This will be a challenge for him.”
Calm, orderly and congenial, based on his profile, Mr. Pedersen is reputed to be the kind of law enforcement officer who values going by the book.
Guarded but pleasant in conversation, the Inglewood native is a onetime pilot who still loves flying. He has split the twenty-three years of his law enforcement career between the Hawthorne and Signal Hill departments.
Responding to a report last weekend that Signal Hill was offering to sweeten his paycheck to lure him into remaining as chief, Mr. Pedersen insisted that no such scene has taken place.
He brings to Culver City a style sharply different from his predecessor, Mr. Montanio, who spent his entire thirty-year career with the same officers. By the end, last autumn Mr. Montanio was regarded more as a one-of-the-boys type in contrast to a hard-nosed chief.
While many members of the Police Dept. have made it abundantly clear that they strongly preferred Asst. Chief Hank Davies to be their next leader, other officers disagree.
How They Differ
The second group, which may be smaller and surely is more reserved, said the department has been running on automatic pilot for the two and a half years since Ted Cooke retired as chief.
“We need a chief who is going to shake up things,” one officer said. “Ideally, he would be a no-nonsense type. He would be transparent, and he would present the same face to the department and to the outside world. Law and order, that’s what I would say.”
An officer who only knew Mr. Montanio briefly before he ascended to the chief’s chair in the spring of ’04 hopes that Mr. Pedersen is as nails-tough as he has heard.
“John had his honeymoon period the first several months,” he said. “Everyone loved everybody else. Then things started happening. They never stopped.”
Less than six months after his appointment, several of Mr. Montanio’s veterans, on a revenge mission, some have alleged, cited the son of Mayor Vera.
Albert Vera Jr. formerly was their colleague.
What ensued was record-messy, eventually resulting in one of the officers, Heidi Keyantash, filing a multi-million dollar suit against the senior Mr. Vera.
Around City Hall, some officials believe that Mr. Vera’s surprise decision not to run for re-election this spring may have been linked to the lawsuit.
The Vera Incident, as it has become known, was easily the most embarrassing of Mr. Montanio’s brief tenure as chief. One city official said flatly that he believes Mr. Montanio immediately began planning for his next job after the Vera-police confrontation was amplified into scandalous headlines.
“After Vera, Montanio kept trying to gain control of the department,” an officer said, “but problems kept cropping up. Obviously, the accumulation of events became a distraction. He couldn’t concentrate on his work. Regardless of how much may have been his fault, John had to get out.
“Our trouble is, nobody has been at the wheel since Cooke. That’s bad.”
