Personal Policing : In San Clemente Neighborhood, Deputies Try Door-to-Door Tactic

SAN CLEMENTE — When Shauna Gelsing moved here from Los Angeles, part of the reason was to escape big-city crime.

So when two sheriff’s deputies pulled up to her house recently, she said, her first thought was that it meant trouble.

To her relief, Deputy Steve Swiderski explained that he and his partner were on a routine call as part of a new neighborhood beat-cop program. On occasion, he said, she might spot them patrolling her street in their car, on bikes or on foot. Then he smiled and departed with a wave.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Gelsing said. “Sometimes I walk at night by myself, and I want to feel safe here, especially after L.A. They should do that in every neighborhood.”

The program, Project 74, is named for the patrol area number of Gelsing’s neighborhood, a racially mixed community of sharp contrasts, with expensive hillside homes overlooking a Latino area that is the turf of the notorious gang Varrio Chico.

The purpose of the program is twofold, said Lt. Tom Davis, chief of police services in San Clemente: to give law enforcement officers a higher and more positive profile in the city and to ease racial tension that has been high since the death two years ago of 17-year-old Stephen Woods, whose skull was pierced with a paint-roller rod in a confrontation with Varrio Chico members and some of their friends.

In a more recent incident that alarmed residents across the city, Jose Zarate Chavez, an 18-year-old San Clemente resident, was shot and killed last month as he sat in a car at Ola Vista and Avenida Del Mar, in the heart of the city’s downtown business section. Sheriff’s deputies are attributing Chavez’ death, too, to gang violence.

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The patrol project, which began Sept. 1, has put three sheriff’s deputies--Swiderski and partners Marc Carter and Brian Sims--in Area 74, and has sponsored a series of meetings, first with white residents and then with Latinos, to seek solutions.

“Then we asked them to put their feelings other than safe streets aside,” Davis said, “and asked them to meet under one roof.”

The unusual gathering drew 125 people and marked the first time in years that white and Latino residents had sat down peacefully together, he said, sometimes communicating through a translator.

“What was amazing was that both sides, Hispanic or white, were common in their concerns of what each wanted in their neighborhoods,” Davis said. “They didn’t care about statistics of lowered crime or the number of people arrested. All they wanted was to have a feeling of being safe.”

Resident Ann Davis Nichols, who attended the meetings, said that many of her neighbors were skeptical at first.

“They said, “How could a program like this work?’ ” said Nichols, who later started a successful neighborhood watch that is working with the patrol program. The result, she said, has been a growing community spirit. “Now, we’re getting to know 60% to 80% of our neighbors.”

Other cities, including Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano, have initiated beat-cop projects in recent months, but San Clemente has taken a different approach by focusing more on helping its estimated 8,000 Latinos feel like an integral part of the city, Davis said.

“It wouldn’t work if the Hispanic community didn’t believe in the strength of the word ‘community,’ ” he said. “We’ve spent a great deal of time getting the Hispanic community involved.”

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For the most part, Latinos have responded positively. When deputies walk the barrio, they’re greeted with hellos and friendly waves from residents passing by or peering from their windows.

“It’s good to see the police walking around here and being friendly,” Francisco Rodriguez said. “I and my wife support what they are doing with the new program.”

Sheriff’s Sgt. Willie Moreno, who is in charge of the Project 74, said communication will be a key to its success. Moreno, who speaks Spanish, is encouraging his deputies to begin learning the language too.

One who has done so is Swiderski, who sees benefits not only in improved communication but also in a better image of police in Latino neighborhoods.

“Most of the time we’re arresting people, and it’s a negative connotation for law enforcement,” Swiderski said. “But part of this job is listening.”

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Swiderski, on foot patrol with Carter recently, spotted Jose Hernandez, 21, of San Clemente driving through an alley and waved him over. “Este es su carro?” Swiderski asked in Spanish, inquiring if the car belonged to Hernandez.

It did not--he had borrowed it from a friend, and though he had proper registration for the vehicle, he did not have a driver’s license.

Though Hernandez ended up getting a ticket and was ordered by the two officers to park and lock the car and walk home, he was good-natured about the incident, a testament to improving relations between cops and the community.

“I didn’t have a license,” Hernandez admitted later. When he saw the two officers on foot, he said, he could have sped away but didn’t. “I just stopped because I saw them walking in the alley and I wanted to know if they were looking for somebody,” he said.