Councilmember-elect Cole Leads Public Safety Panel Discussion

“The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of community welfare and existence.”

Sir Robert Peel, father of modern policing; founder of Scotland Yard 

District 2 residents packed a hot Jefferson School Auditorium Tuesday evening for an overview of the current state of public safety in Pasadena. 

Incoming District 2 Councilmember and former mayor Rick Cole, was joined by Pasadena Police Chief Gene Harris, Police Oversight Commission member Juliana Serrano, Selina Ho, a data analyst for the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice reform advocacy group; and Planning Commissioner Steve Olivas, for a panel discussion on Crime, Policing and Public Safety. 

It was Cole’s third in a series of community issue forums.

Cole began with a brief history of modern policing, noting that Sir Robert Peel of Scotland is considered the father of the form, and in fact, he is why British officers are referred to as “Bobbies.” 

He then outlined his own vision of what he termed, “A Comprehensive Approach to Public Safety.”

Cole’s vision encompassed eight goals—rebuild neighborhood watch programs, strengthen public schools, reform the justice system, help ex-felons pursue productive lives, pioneer unarmed police response, end street homelessness, support struggling families, and “restore respect for our laws and each other.”  

As part of his overview, Cole also highlighted what is known as the “Pasadena Way” of community-based policing, a policy Chief Harris also pledged to uphold as he assumed command of the force in 2023. 

As Cole explained, “The Pasadena Way” actually originated when Chief Bernard Melekian instilled a very distinctive approach to Pasadena policing in 1996,  emphasizing community policing “before community policing was cool.” 

Cole emphasized the aspect, “How we get the job done is just as important as getting the job done.” 

The councilmember-elect also walked through a series of crime statistics for the last year and noted 100,00 thousand police report interactions. 

“That means that you made 60,000 calls and the officers and civilians initiated another 40,000 interactions,” he said. “So it’s a very busy police department.”

“The budget is $105 million this year,” he continued. “They have authorized 385 staff, they have authorized 240 police officers, but currently they are under that number.”

Cole also explained the Police Oversight Commission, created in 2020, following what some community members termed illegal police shootings. 

The commission seats members from each council district, and  three recommended from community organizations within the city. Cole explained that they have no direct control over police policy, but they do have the right to review police policies and recommend changes or improvements in the department.

Chief Harris also explained that crime numbers and statistics can be deceiving, saying, “From a crime perspective, Pasadena is not unique in terms of experiencing crime, and there are parts down, which is always a good sign, but other stats are rising, though I think there’s a lot of reasons for that.” 

Harris also emphasized that the department, which is currently going through some branding changes, “needs to make sure that when we weren’t driving, that we were stopping and talking.” 

“For whatever reason, we believed we were too busy for that and that’s our fault,” he said. “We lost sight of what’s important, and so we had to bring that back. 

“One of the things that we are developing,” added Harris, “is that every officer, all uniformed personnel, including the chief of police, is required to do, even if you’re on administrative assignment in the community, just walk up, shake hands, introduce yourself and just have a conversation. Not a crisis conversation, not a traffic stop, not suspicious. Things like that are a necessary evil sometimes, but there’s a way we can do it that doesn’t have to be the strong way or the heavy way that law enforcement requires.” 

Planning Commissioner Olivas also bemoaned the rise in shootings in Northwest Pasadena and elsewhere, saying, “It’s devastating for all the neighborhoods, and for the police department, but really I think the root of the fix starts long before, with prevention services that are provided to youth in at risk communities that have been hit by violence. 

“And that’s where our nonprofit organizations that are involved with youth programs, like  the Boys and Girls club, which allow folks an opportunity, outside of being out on the street but under specialized prevention and intervention, are so important.” 

Olivas added, “We’re never going to law enforcement our way out of this problem. We’re never going to, and we all know that incarceration is not always the answer.” 

“There are certain areas around the city where this is happening, where this is solved,” he continued. “This is something we’ve done before by focusing on what we used to call ‘hotspots’ in these areas where we know things are going on. And this is critical to have this dynamic because when something bad occurs, the first thing we do is, find witnesses. And that’s not a great time to be establishing a relationship.”

Ho concurred with Olivas, saying that community violence intervention programs have been proven to reduce violence wherever they have been implemented in several cities across the country. 

“We can also invest in community safety,” she continued. “We all know that good schools, education, affordable housing, that these are the things that make us safe. These are the things that our community needs and these are the things that will prevent crime in the long run. And often these things are presented in our current poisonous politics as either this or that, only one way or the other.” 

Oversight Commision member Serrano also pointed out the history and importance of a strong Police Oversight Commission, saying, “In the journey that we’ve been on, for the community to bring civilian oversight to Pasadena, we had challenges. And something that I think the body continues to experience as a challenge, is that folks put their own thoughts, their own opinions, their own feelings about policing and add that to the expectations of what that oversight work needs to look like. That’s a significant challenge 

And yet still,” she emphasized, “I think that we are doing really great work. 

But she tempered her enthusiasm with some reality, recalling that,  “I know even at the point we were forming the oversight commission, we were well aware that there was little appetite from the political powers -that-be in the community to give the oversight commission something like subpoena power. And we know that there are other civilian bodies that have subpoena power across the nation. And so we knew that that was not going to be something that we would be able to achieve.”

Cole pressed Serrano on how to achieve a balance with the use of technology, in a world where everyone is constantly on camera.

Serrano responded, “I saw it at play when I went up in one of our helicopters. I did a fly-along, and saw how our officers there who were responding to a call from the air unit were struggling to identify what was happening on the ground because we didn’t have the best technology in that craft and that aircraft at that moment. 

“And so here we were, she continued, “I’m with my own eyes trying to look down and saying, ‘I don’t see anybody. And they’ve got binoculars trying to figure out where the victim was, and where the suspect might be driving off. 

“And so I know,” she explained, “that when the police department asked the Council to get new technology for that chopper, just how that would be used in action, and how that could benefit. 

“So our education, and our awareness,” she said, “is really key about how technology is currently being used because it can be beneficial to the work that law enforcement does.”