Living In

Investigating a robbery report in the barrio in Riverside, Calif., a police patrol car sighted some possible suspects: a group of Chicans packed in a gaudily painted Chevy. One of the cops barked the usual command: "Everyone out with your hands in sight!" As the Chicanos emerged, the policeman's jaw dropped. Among the suspects was a fellow cop, Gerald Carroll, outfitted in jeans and dark glasses, his blond hair hidden under a knitted cap. Carroll hastily explained. He was living among the Chicanos as part of a program sponsored by the Riverside police department; he was just out for a ride with his new friends. Afterward Carroll described his feelings on being confronted by a cop: "My emotions were of fear, of apprehension, and of being at the other end of the stick."

That sort of perception is exactly the point of the department's course, an unusual program conceived by Riverside Police Chief R. Fred Ferguson and his staff. He has been worried by the persisting clashes and lack of cooperation between his cops and the 18,000 Mexican-Americans who live in the city. The cops regard the high-crime area as enemy territory bristling with real and imagined dangers; the Chicanos view the police as alien, brutal oppressors who despise their way of life.

Coffee for Breakfast. The get-to-know-the-barrio program starts with a 40-hour crash course in Chicano history and culture at Loma Linda University. The policemen learn about Mexican character, art, music and food. They go to a town south of the border for two weeks to study Spanish. The live-in phase of the program is optional. "It's not fair to mandate that kind of emotional experience," says Ferguson. Some 50 policemen have taken the Chicano course; eight have stayed with a family and several more volunteers are waiting their turn. "A lot of guys think they're going to be with someone who'll cut their throats," says Patrolman Mike Robitzer, the first cop to live in. He emerged from his threeday, two-night stint without a scratch. Joining an eleven-member family with a father on welfare, he experienced a degree of culture shock. He shared a drafty enclosed patio with a teen-age son. For his first breakfast he was offered "eggs and orange juice." He happily accepted until he noticed that the raw eggs were in the juice. With this came a bowl of brown soup. What, Robitzer gently inquired, was that? Menudo, was the reply, or tripe soup. Robitzer settled for coffee. Conversation did not come easily in the beginning, but eventually they made a breakthrough. Says Robitzer: "Somehow we managed to talk about everything from police brutality to life in Mexico."

In the course of their barrio sojourn, the police made some surprising cross-cultural discoveries. Women's lib, for example, has not yet penetrated the barrio. The father remains the head of the household in all matters; he and the other males are even served their meals first. The women eat later.

Ferguson is not expecting dramatic overnight changes in police-Chicano relations. But already at least one potential explosion was defused by the live-in sessions. Shortly after his barrio stint, Carroll was arresting a Chicano who attempted to rob a store. As usual, a jeering mob gathered and started heckling the patrolman. Then he recognized a youth he had met while living in the barrio. The two men exchanged greetings; the crowd grew silent and slowly melted away. "All of a sudden, the hostility was gone," recalls Carroll. He adds: "We all have these preconceived ideas. You see a car full of Chicanos with their long hair and their dress, and they look pretty bad. Now I'm a little more open-minded about what I do. A little more walk-around-in-my-moccasins type of thing."

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