Snowden takes over the Hills

Deirdre Newman

Dave Snowden’s aggressive pursuit of modernizing the Beverly Hills

Police Department as the interim police chief inspired the city to

abort its recruitment process and appoint him as the new police

chief.

Snowden said he is thrilled at the opportunity.

“What I found here is a very professionally run organization that

has pretty much been held back in making progress to the 21st

century,” Snowden said. “Although they’ve got excellent people and

they’ve got a great commitment to policing, they really don’t have

the resources available that they could have if they had gone after

them. Basically, I’ve done that.”

In January, Snowden began serving as the interim chief while

Beverly Hills searched for someone to replace Marvin Iannone, who had

been at the helm for 18 years.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to look very far.

Beverly Hills City Manager Roderick Wood said he liked what he saw

in Snowden. His appointment is contingent on approval by the Beverly

Hills City Council.

Snowden is the perfect choice to address the department’s pressing

needs, Wood said.

“Chief Snowden has been doing an exceptional job in addressing

these current needs,” Wood said, in a press release. “He has gained

the trust and support of the department and most of its personnel in

a very short time.”

Snowden retired from the Costa Mesa Police Department to protect

his retirement benefits, he said.

“I didn’t retire because I wanted to retire. I retired because of

the retirement system,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for the

retirement system, they’d have to cart me out. If I’d waited a little

longer, the way the formula is calculated, I would have lost a lot of

money in my future retirement benefits.”

Some of the changes he has implemented in Beverly Hills include

assigning one of his officers to a countywide task force called L.A.

Impact, which is helping the department tackle a rash of burglaries

in the northern part of the city, he said.

“Two weeks into it, we’ve made significant progress and a few

arrests,” Snowden said.

Snowden also applied for a DUI enforcement grant to help lower the

number of drunk-driving-related accidents in the city.

And he is getting a wealth of support from the community, he said.

“The reception I’ve received from not just the officers, but the

rank-and-file and the community at large, is just incredible,”

Snowden said. “I’ve seldom seen an agency with such strong community

support. ... It’s off the map.”

Snowden said he is not planning on moving to Beverly Hills, but

might get a townhouse to crash at a few nights a week.

“My home and my kids and my wife and family [and] too many friends

to even mention live here [in Costa Mesa],” Snowden said.

Working in Beverly Hills, Snowden has received some good-natured

ribbing from his son and daughter-in-law. They took the Eddie Murphy

poster from the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies and placed Snowden’s face

on Murphy’s body and put it in a musical picture frame. When you push

Snowden’s face, the “Beverly Hills Cop” theme song plays.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.