Santa Ana : Reception Will Honor Outgoing Police Chief

Police Chief Raymond C. Davis, who is retiring this week, will be honored tonight by local Latino community members at a reception at Bowers Museum on North Main Street.

The reception, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. and costs $3 to attend, is being hosted by a group of Latino civic and business leaders that includes City Councilman John Acosta, community activist Sam Romero and Zeke Hernandez, president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Davis is widely credited with improving relations between the Police Department and the city’s Latinos, who constitute about half of Santa Ana’s population. But some of the ideas that Davis has introduced in his 14 years as chief--including a policy of non-cooperation with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service during that agency’s roundups of illegal aliens--have angered other residents, who claim that such policies have created a haven in the city for undocumented immigrants.