Panel Studies Police-Latino Problems in Valley

Citing public mistrust highlighted by the Rodney G. King beating, a top Los Angeles police official on Thursday convened a panel to study sometimes-hostile relations between officers and Spanish-speaking residents in the San Fernando Valley.

The 20-member Spanish Language Outreach Committee is the brainchild of Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker, who oversees the Los Angeles Police Department’s five patrol areas in the Valley. Kroeker assumed his assignment the day four Valley officers were indicted in the videotaped beating of King, a black Altadena motorist.

Members of the committee, meeting for the first time in Canoga Park, said fear of authority figures prevents many Latinos from reporting crimes and seeking police protection, and that language and cultural barriers are partly to blame.

The deputy chief, who said he is intent on restoring the department’s image, said he began to appreciate the depth of mistrust between police and Latinos while attending a series of community meetings “in the aftermath of that horrible incident, the Rodney King incident.”

As a result, he appointed Latino police officers, community activists, and business people, all bilingual, to the committee to study the issue in the San Fernando Valley. Committee members include Irene Tovar, a Pacoima community activist; Ed Moreno, the retired principal of San Fernando High School; Bill Beadles, publisher of the Spanish newspaper Mi Casa, and Fernando Viveros Casteneda, deputy Mexican consul general.