A Very Uncoplike Cop

WALKING down a headquarters hall or a ghetto sidewalk, his gait halfway between a lope and a swagger, Tom Reddin looks every inch the Compleat Policeman. If his huge hands, barrel chest and easy Irish smile do not betray his occupation, his glib, salty speech is unmistakably that of the lawman.

Yet in nearly every other way, Reddin is a very un-coplike cop.

His tastes are mildly intellectual. Virtually every attraction that comes to the Los Angeles Music Center is on his list, and with his wife Betty he attends night courses at U.C.L.A., their subjects ranging from archaeology and modern art to drama and "Man in Contemporary Society." He is perhaps the only top cop in the country who cultivates the acquaintance of a score of psychiatrists--all of whom meet with him about once a month to discuss the attitudes of policemen and the police community-relations program.

Reddin is probably also one of the few chiefs who never thought of becoming a cop until he was 24, almost middle age for a rookie. The son of a flamboyant carnival tycoon who made more than $1,000,000 building amusement parks in Europe and Australia, Reddin was born in New York City. The family moved to Holdenville, Okla., when his father scented more money in petroleum than suckers--and suckered himself into penury. "While Indians were discovering oil under just about every campfire pit," observes Reddin, "Dad managed to drill more dry holes than anyone else in the history of Oklahoma." When Reddin was eight, the family traveled on to Denver, where he stayed through high school, racked up straight A's and lettered in basketball, baseball and football.

After a four-year hitch in the Navy, he found a job at a gas station in Los Angeles in 1938. When he was alone in the station one night, a stickup man shoved a gun in his back, then took $12 from the till. The police answered Reddin's call in what seemed no more than seconds, capturing the holdup man. Impressed, Reddin began asking questions, discovering that a rookie cop commanded $170 a month--$40 more than he was making. That was all he needed to know. In 1941 he became a cop (today he makes $32,800 a year).

Though he never got a degree, he took courses at Los Angeles City College, waking up at 4:30 a.m. to study, and began preparing himself for more complicated tasks. He did not have to wait long. He made sergeant in 1945, lieutenant in 1949, captain in 1953. After he was made deputy chief in 1960, he revamped the department's record-keeping system, modernized communications, and set up new cost-accounting methods. More and more, he began to speak for ailing Chief William Parker.

Tom Reddin prides himself on his ability to work coolly under stress, as he did in August 1965, when he was called in at the last minute to devise the strategy that eventually quieted a ravaged city. Seventeen months after taking charge, he cannot hide his enthusiasm at being chief. "I love the challenge," he says. "It scares hell out of me, but I love it." He adds: "This is the year of the cop."

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