Word: reddin
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Positive Thirst. Chief Reddin calls his predecessor "one of the greatest police administrators who ever lived." But Tom Reddin, he adds, "is a different fellow from William H. Parker." Reddin sees opportunity in "a community thirst for positive programs from law-enforcement people. We have to find a lot of things to be for rather than a lot of things to be against." The son of a New York millionaire who got rich running carnivals, Reddin was forced into optimism when his father lost every penny vainly drilling for oil in Oklahoma. A star student as well as a star...
...four-year hitch in the Navy, wound up as a Los Angeles gas-station manager. A customer gawked at his size (6 ft. 4 in., 210 Ibs.), suggested that he become a policeman. So did several cops who stopped in for gas. Reddin signed up in 1941 as a $2,040-a-year patrolman, became, in turn, a detective sergeant, adjutant to the traffic chief, lieutenant in charge of training, a much respected captain of the Watts division, deputy chief and head of the technical-services bureau...
...chief of detectives after Parker died, Reddin took a battery of tests-for the top post that pitted him against Inspector James G. Fisk, the department's articulate chief of community relations. Fisk had toiled to heal the wounds of Watts, sending white-Negro police teams into ghetto schools, running workshops for gang members, assigning patrolmen to walk around meeting people and "dispel stereotypes." On the test scores, Fisk beat Reddin by a hairline half of 1%. The city's five police commissioners nonetheless picked Reddin for his overall depth and breadth. As deputy chief, Fisk will expand...
Sensor and Instant Lawyers. Chief Reddin is full of ideas, such as incentive pay to raise patrol-force status and keep good men in prowl cars. He wastes no time blaming the Supreme Court for "handcuffing" policemen. He is much harder on scientists and technicians for ignoring urgent police equipment needs: tiny radios, night glasses, lightweight armor, heat sensors to detect hidden fugitives, metal sensors for frisking suspects. He also wants someone to develop a gadget to stop a fleeing car's engine and a computerized "instant lawyer" to help police field interrogators avoid unlawful procedures...
...Chief Reddin ranks his priorities as "crime in the streets," community relations and better recruitment. He aims to walk a "terrible tightrope" between "hard-nosed" policing and understanding. He thinks science and systematization should take over routine jobs, leaving "more time to talk to people." Minority groups are only some of the people he means. Last year crime dropped (by 3.8%) in only one Los Angeles area: the predominantly Negro Newton Street division. By contrast, serious crime jumped 32% in the white, prosperous West Valley division. If the L.A. department is now doing something right in "bad" areas, Reddin must...