Community-Based Policing Gets Residents’ Backing

Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas led a parade of community leaders and local residents who on Thursday asked the Police Commission to help set up local citizen groups to participate in the development of an experimental, community-based policing program.

The pilot program, approved earlier this week by the council, would emphasize crime prevention over arrests.

Council members and police officials said that the program, scheduled to begin next month, could set the stage for a shift from a response-driven department to one that collaborates with the community it serves--a key recommendation of the Christopher Commission report that followed the videotaped police beating of motorist Rodney G. King.

Ridley-Thomas told a specially scheduled commission meeting in South-Central Los Angeles that the program “represents an approach to law enforcement that builds on the desire and expertise of the police and harnesses the good will and resources of the people.”