Article in Pasadena Star-News: Improved Community, police ties discussed

Improved community, police ties discussed

Racial violence, better communications at issue

By Mary Frances Gurton Staff Writer
Pasadena Star-News

Article Launched:12/01/2006 08:58:50 PM PST


PASADENA - Improving communication and understanding between police and the
communities they serve is an ongoing challenge for law enforcement, according
to various participants at a symposium Friday hosted by a Pasadena-based dispute
resolution organization. "We have consistently been ahead of the curve in terms of
making \ police department more open," Pasadena police Chief Bernard Melekian said.
"Dealing with \ as well as with a diverse variety of citizens presents a complex set of issues
for the police department. We don't want to jeopardize anyone." Representatives from a
spectrum of federal, state and local law enforcement and other agencies joined Melekian
on Friday to address the complex and constantly changing needs of a historically diverse
region at the offices of the Western Justice Center Foundation, a neutral, alternative
organization specializing in dispute resolution and mediation. The Pasadena Police
Department commissioned the organization to design resolution dialogues following an
officer-involved shooting that took the life of an African-American teenager in 2004, and
more recently following a rash of race-based youth violence in and around the city. Los
Angeles police Chief William Bratton said that since the early 1990s, a new "community
policing" method had replaced the earlier "professional" model in which police defined
themselves as serving the community, but apart from it. "The earlier model had proven
itself to be a failing philosophy, which had the opposite of the intended effect," he said,
"especially in minority communities where \ created further problems." Under the
new model, police departments operate with a policy of partnership, communication
and prevention within the community, he said. "\ tend to look at things through their
own prism," Bratton added. "We need to see through each other's prisms." Najeeba
Syeed-Miller, the foundation's executive director, said it was important to take a regional
approach - understanding that conflicts aren't always defined by a single minority and
majority. "We should use a shared model of equality in order to avoid stereotypes," she
said. "We need to be guides and translators - not just across cultures based in race,
language and ethnicity, but across corporate and professional cultures.
" mary.gurton@sgvn.com  (626) 578-6300 Ext. 4461".


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