The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 565

1 2 THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1991 VC LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES COUNTY HOPELESSLY IN DEBT? VIVIAN G. KRUPNICK ATTORNEY AT LAW FOR BANKRUPTCY INFORMATION 781-5166 Tears in City Over Cop Versus Cop Mind-Set DEAL DIRECT WITH OWNER SAVE! AL MARTINEZ ill Br- v- i Compare our everyday low prices to department and horned improvement stores. FAMILY LEISURE CENTERS lets you choose from an array of. designs and options that have been carefully planned to complement your home and redefine your standard of living. apartments were thugs, but he didn't create or encourage them.

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H207, Northridge 1-800-72-PATlO OR 1-800-727-2846 Ucenw 1420295 A street cop's lot, as everyone knows, is not a happy one. He is pressured on the one hand to stop crime and on the other to protect individual rights. He is badgered from the top and harassed from the bottom. Gangs are out to kill him, liberals hate him, kids don't trust him, ethnics fear him and I'm not too damned sure about him either. That's a lot to handle for a guy just trying to make a living.

I've been up to my kazoo in cops lately due to a comment made the other day by LAPD Capt. Tom Elfmont. He was one of three policemen cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the ransacking raid of those apartments at 39th and Dalton three years ago. He said the misdemeanor vandalism trial was a revelation of the "us versus them" syndrome that exists within the Police Department. And he didn't mean cops versus the community.

He meant cop versus cop. The 39th and Dalton case brought it into the open. Before Rodney King was worked over by uniformed goons in a feeding frenzy, the Dalton incident was what had everyone in town salivating for punishment of the louts involved. It happened in 1988. Four apartments were thought to be gang-controlled crack houses.

They weren't. But that didn't stop an army of cops from trashing the place. Windows were broken, glassware smashed, furniture shattered and clothing destroyed. The apartments ended up looking like a building in Kansas after a tornado. This wasn't police work.

It was blind violence. Elfmont was captain of the unit that did the damage and was charged with conspiracy and vandalism. He says he was the department's scapegoat, the command officer who had to take the fall. The guys who hit the cops are up against. Still hoping to salvage his career, Elfmont remains circumspect about the conflict within.

But he indicates that the trial was an example of street cops out to get a command officer by zeroing in on him. They were lying about his orders to them, he says, and they knew it. He finds irony in the fact that he's a captain once disciplined for spending too much time in the field suddenly becoming a target for those he spent the time with. Others in the department I spoke with are less circumspect. They're ail street cops and, to a man, none wanted his name used.

Most had good words to say about Elfmont personally. They call him a bright and aggressive captain who tries hard to get along with his men. "But there're a lot of dolts who take him literally," one man said. "When he gives them a pep talk and says rhetorically 'kick ass and take that's what they do. As a result, he's a shooting star about to hit the ground." All agree the Us Versus Them battle exists.

One calls it a war, the difference between those trying to save their butts and those risking them in the street. He addsi "It'll get worse." Another blames the "robocrats" around Chief Daryl F. Gates. "They tell him what he wants to hear," he says, "but only if it helps their careers. He's become an ego in uniform who doesn't know what the hell is going on in the streets." A policeman's lot may not be a happy one, but a citizen's lot isn't exactly blissful when cops are either on a rampage or in the command of a chief babied by sycophants.

One hopes it will get better soon, or the tears that fell in a courtroom are going to turn into a flood in the city. What attracted me to Elfmont in the first place was a photograph of him sobbing when the verdict was read. He said later they were tears of relief. But at least they indicated a degree of sensitivity rare among those who consider stoicism a display of manhood and tears a sign of weakness. I talked with him about it a couple of days after the trial.

"It was an emotional moment," he said. "All my life I've wanted to be a cop. You get two master's degrees, handle street crime, get good reports, get promoted and suddenly one day you're on Page One and everyone's calling you a bastard. It's been a tough three It was during our conversation he mentioned the Us Versus Them Syndrome. The "us" are the commanders who never go beyond their office doors.

The "them" are the guys in the rain at 3 a.m. chasing down a cholo with an Uzi. There are two distinct classes of people in the department and it creates conflict, Elfmont says. He feels the division has an impact on the quality of service to the public because the street cop doesn't trust the backing he'll get from the top, and the command officers don't know what the street ANTI-GANG: Group Denies Running 'Snitch Network' UMU.7iTi nisi ART AUCTION OF PRINTS, SCULPTURES, PAINTINGS AND BRONZES BY FAMOUS ARTISTS fi SCULPTORS. PUBLIC WELCOME AS WELL AS DEALERS DECORATORS Continued from B8 "clarification," indicating that the commentary did not necessarily represent the views of the weekly, has been published in the paper's latest edition, which hit the streets Wednesday.

"I doubt very seriously that Anybody's safety has been endangered by anything in the newspaper," Thomas said. "If they're not a snitch then the people will know it. If they are, they will suffer the consequences by virtue of their own actions, not by something that's printed in the newspaper." Thomas said he obtained the commentary from a man who was passing out leaflets near the newspaper's office. "I don't know who the author is," the publisher said. "I got it off of the street.

After editing it some, We published it as a commentary to stimulate interest and thought." The commentary was mostly a scathing attack on the Police Department's ongoing Operation Cul-de-Sac, which was initiated about rallies against drugs and gangs. It also provides gang awareness seminars and tutors for youths who are struggling in school, Valdivia said. Last week, police announced a 67 drop in gang-related drive-by shootings in the area, a 10 reduction in street crimes and a 14 drop in school truancy. The Sentinel commentary objected toxhe program, saying, "virtually any part of life behind the walls will be subject to invasion, involvement and control by the LAPD." The commentary said police will rely on community groups to supply intelligence. "Operation Cul-de-Sac has -il-ready hired Community Youth Gang Services to operate this snitch network," it read.

The Sentinel has not taken a position on the Cul-de-Sac program. Thomas said he had no evidence that Community Youth Gang Service counselors were informants. Valdivia said his counselors do 18 months ago to reduce the number of drive-by shootings and drug dealing in one of Los Angeles' most violent neighborhoods. As part of the operation, police have barricaded streets in a one-square-mile area of South Los Angeles near Jefferson High School. Police say the wrought-, iron gates are intended to reduce traffic and help create a sense of community.

Ten officers patrol the area on bicycles in an effort to develop rapport with residents. They also have gone door to door pushing academic and athletic programs for area youths and Neighborhood Watch programs, said Sgt. Larry Tate, who heads the unit. The Police Department also contracts with Community Youth Gang Services to organize the community and to encourage cooperation with police. The organization receives about $60,000 a year to put on "Family Days" at local parks and to stage marches and not give police specific information about gang members, but often discuss overall strategy on how to curb gang activity with officers.

He' said his organization may tip police when counselors hear of a pending attack. But again, no names or specifics are given. "If you get into a situation where you know for a fact a homicide could be prevented, like any good citizen, you say to police, can you be present at the location," Valdivia said. Tate also denied that the organization provided police with informants, a rumor that is not new to gang neighborhoods. Valdivia declined to provide further details of the threats, saying that to do so would endanger his counselors.

But one counselor, Theron Cook, said the commentary has him on edge. "You have to take a seconds look," he said. "Then you have to have the heart to do the job." ITEMS INCLUDES BY ARTISTS: ALMARAZ, ALVAR. AG AM, BRAGG, CHAGALL, DALI, ERTE, ERNST, EARLE. ROMERO, HOCKNEY, DELACROIX, GREENBLAT, KOSTABI, PERGOLA, SCHARF, RAUSCHENBERG, ROSENQUIST, MC KNIGHT, NEIMAN, REMBRANDT, PEIRSON, BEDARD, KARP, JIANG, MIRO, LEBEDANG, YAMAGATA, WOOSTER, SCOTT, WATANABE, M.

YOUNG, PETER MAX, KING, LUONGO, NAGEL, WARHOL, RUSCHA, ROCKWELL, HARING, CHEMIAKIN, TARKAY, PICASSO, TWITCHELL, UGHTENSTEIN, MOTHERWELL, ZOX, KUDO.CONAL, KELLEY, HOPPE, PISSARRO, AZOULAY, DOTY AND MANY MORE. ALSO: ORIENTAL RUGS BRONZES AFTER REMINGTON, CART, MOREAU MORE CHI CELEBRATION: Croatians and Slovenians Observe Independence VOLVO TEisnsris 7l brating independence," said Mario Juravich, an aide to City Council-woman Joan Milke Flores. "We are happy to be here, Americans, but we are here because we could not make a living or because we did not have political freedom in Croatia, not because we didn't love our country." Ever since Yugoslavia submitted to communist rule after World War II, he said, Croatians from outside the country have been raising money to send to their homeland. Immigrants from the United States and elsewhere sent money to support families, nationalist causes and, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, equipment for the cause, such as typewriters, facsimile machines, telephones and computers. Croatians, the second-largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia, have been at odds with the dominant Serbians repeatedly throughout their history.

Of the 1.7 million Yugoslavs believed to have been killed during World War II, up to 1 million reportedly died in ethnic violence. Continued from B8 plum brandy that relatives have brought them on visits. "Zivjela Croatia!" they toast. Salute to Croatia!" "1 drank Courvoisier," confessed Volaric. "That plum stuff is pretty Strong." "We feel we have been promoting this since 1945, when communists took over," said Petar Radie-lovic, a Croatian language radio commentator.

"Everybody is happy with full-hearted exuberance. "Finally they will be able to achieve their own future." When Segaric went to say his first Mass for mir peace for the new state of Croatia on Wednesday morning, his parishioners didn't seem to understand. Croatians, have long since moved away from' the church, built in 1910. The faces of the faithful staring up at him were Mexican and Chinese. Afterward, he said, one Mexican woman came up and congratulated him, but he didn't think she even knew where Croatia is.

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VENTURA COUNTY EDITION flo0 Angeles (States The Times Wraps It All Up News from the county, the nation and the world. 11 K'4 mllti IWxfil 1 INSTALLATION I VENTURA COUNTY EDITION Cos Angeles (Rmee p..