Right from start, police recruits take to the sidewalks

With her factory-fresh police belt holding revolver, mace, two nightsticks, and one radio, Jeanine Giordano strides into Hollywood Star Market.

"Sir, we are just walking a foot beat up and down the street. ... I'm sure you've seen us," says the young police recruit to a Korean working behind displays of beef jerky and pen lighters. "If you have any problems or questions," she adds after a conversation, "go ahead and let us know."

The clerk's nervous frown melts into a broad smile.

Score one for the new attempt by the Los Angeles Police Department to repair one of the most tarnished, adversarial images of any police force in the country.

By pushing officers out of squad cars and onto sidewalks, many police departments have tried to reestablish ties to their communities. What's new about the LAPD's move, formally announced last week, is that it's starting from the bottom up: training new recruits to walk the beat.

The innocuous-sounding Community Interaction Program (CIP) - 50 graduate-ready recruits at a time who fan out across the city's most pedestrian-heavy crime areas - is a new twist on an old idea, courtesy of one of America's most innovative police chiefs. The story behind it clarifies, experts say, why many of law enforcement's own brass feel police often go awry.

"Police work started out as a foot beat in which officers got to know everyone, and worked on crime from the inside out, proactively and preventively," says Lieutenant Nick Zingo, of LAPD's training division.

That changed partly for economic reasons - cops in cars could cover more ground in growing cities - and also because of strategic shifts by many to mobile task forces used to get tough on entrenched urban crime.

"When [police] do nothing but respond to calls, everything the police see is negative and under high stress - suspects, witnesses, victims," says Zingo. "This [program] allows the police to establish relationships."

That's exactly what Ms. Giordano and her two fellow trainees, Conor Sever and Joseph Romo are doing. As three of 50 in the program's second class of trainees, they spend four weeks of eight-hour shifts walking Hollywood Boulevard, getting to know residents and business owners - and making arrests, if necessary.

"This is the real stuff, the stuff we've been waiting for," says Mr. Sever. The 28-year-old said he loved Academy training, but it was "like a laboratory." "We're finally dealing with real people and real concerns, seeing what affects them personally and helping them resolve their problems if we can." The trio made five felony arrests, including a drug bust and an in-progress car theft, in their first three weeks.

In the handful of precincts where the LAPD is trying CIP, daytime crime - petty theft, burglary, car theft, assault - in the target downtown and Hollywood areas has plummeted to nearly zero, according to Hollywood precinct Captain Michael Moriarty.

Many residents and business owners on Hollywood Boulevard are embracing the new program.

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