Chief Harris Assures Police Dept.’s Efforts to Address Gang Violence Through New Gang Enforcement Unit Will Be Legal, Ethical

Pasadena Police Chief Eugene Harris assured the members of the Community Police Oversight Commission (CPOC) at its Thursday meeting that Pasadena Police Department’s new gang enforcement unit, called Street Crime Unit (SCU), will be unlike previous gang units that were disbanded over community concerns related to police violence. 

The SCU was established on May 8, 2023 to interrupt street-level criminal activity with an emphasis on criminal street gangs, street-level narcotics and crime that impairs the community’s quality of life. 

It replaced the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU), which aimed to investigate career criminals and violent crime offenders through intelligence gathering. CIU replaced the Special Enforcement Section established in 1997, which introduced a SWAT component to the mission of gang enforcement and street-level narcotics investigations. 

The Pasadena Police Dept. dissolved the CIU in February 2020 as part of a series of department reforms geared toward increasing community confidence and cooperation amid nationwide calls for changes in policing after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

“We are going to rebrand everything that we are doing within the police department,” said Harris. “We have to learn the lessons of the past. We have to make sure we’re not repeating those issues and it’s important for us to take those things and learn how to develop the future thought process so we can get the job done but do it in a way that is applicable in today’s contemporary law enforcement.” 

Harris said they are doing the rebranding to earn the public’s trust. 

The police will do so by selecting the most appropriate supervisors and managers and ensuring that there are multiple layers of oversight within the department, Harris said.

“The biggest part of this team that is different than any other is that we have made a community twist. We wanted a community flavor attached to it and we did that by including the neighborhood action team as part of this group,” said Harris. 

“There are elements to it that we are building to show that we’re going to be very surgical, legal, moral, ethical, safe and within policy in everything that we do,” he added.  

SCU Supervisor Sergeant Jason Cordova said SCU investigators are “experts in building community relationships to collaborate on creating long-term solutions to street-level criminal activity.” 

According to Cordova, the team is composed of highly trained detectives who are experts in criminal street gangs, street-level narcotics, undercover surveillance, tactical operations, informant management, criminal street gang and narcotics investigations.

The team is composed of 13 officers, two sergeants, one corporal, and one lieutenant.

According to Cordova, the SCU is divided into the Gang Detectives and the Special Problems Detectives.

Gang Detectives investigate gang-related crimes using emerging technology and gather gang-related intelligence for strategic arrests and assist robbery/homicide units with criminal cases while the Special Problems Detectives investigate quality of life issues, which include narcotics sales, drinking in public, problem locations causing a nuisance throughout the city.

The detectives do that by conducting bicycle patrols, according to Cordova. 

Cordova said that the SCU believes in and applies the four principles of procedural justice as it carries out its daily mission: fairness, transparency, providing opportunity for voice, and being impartial in decision-making.

Since its inception in May, the new gang unit has recovered 38 firearms from gang members throughout the city.