By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

First of two parts

January 5 -- For nearly half his life, Tim Jackman knew very little about crime.

Raised mainly by his mother and grandparents in rural New Hampshire, Santa Monica's new chief of police acknowledged there just wasn't much to get into trouble over in a town of 1,500 better known for dairy production than criminal stats.

"It was a small community," recalled the smiling 46-year-old chief of his boyhood home. "If you ever had any thoughts of doing anything wrong, your neighbors would rat you out in a heartbeat."

Police Chief Tim Jackman in his new office. (Photo by Olin Ericksen)

Yet the career law enforcement officer has spent the second half of his life fighting crime. After a stint in the Marines -- enlisting at age 17 to find some "discipline" -- Jackman fell into police work in Long Beach for 23 years. He spent most of the first ten patrolling the city’s toughest streets.

"The bias when I was there was either you were a street cop or you weren't, and people kind of looked down on if you were anyone else," Jackman said. "I had worked entirely in the inner city and I never worked the nice ends of town."

The invaluable street experience took its toll on the young officer.

"Working in a large city, in an inner city, can jade you," he said. "And I don't know that I was jaded, but I was capable of getting there very fast."

That changed, Jackman said, the day he "ran (his) mouth a bit too much" to an incoming chief who gave him two choices. "Neither one was very nice," he said.

That launched a ten month stint in community relations, one of many assignments Jackman worked along the way to heading a department of his own in Santa Monica.

“It was the first time in my police career that I had seen the more positive side of police work," he said. "It was probably one of the most valuable assignments I had. It changed my mindset on how to do police work."

Now, with a B.S from the University of the State of New York and an M.B.A from U.C. Irvine -- and 23 years of experience -- Santa Monica’s new chief is coming up on one month into his new tour of duty.

In a candid interview with The Lookout inside his office overlooking the Pacific and miles away from rural New Hampshire, Jackman discussed everything from how to tackle the city’s homeless and gang problems to Santa Monica's new marijuana initiative and building community ties.

Why did you accept the job in Santa Monica?

Santa Monica is a very unique city. From an outsider’s perspective, you've certainly heard of the People's Republic of Santa Monica, which is to a police officer a little scary when you hear it at first.

But as I dug a little deeper and did my due diligence before I applied here, I found out that the politics are independent of the police department. This is still a hired professional police department and does what it is required to do, and it has suffered very little political interference.

It's an incredibly active community. From a police perspective, very few people ever want to get involved. To come to this community, where it seems like everybody wants to get involved, I would much rather have this as a basis.

People will say a lot of things, and they'll be critical, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It can all result in a safer community for everybody. And that's really what it comes down to and why I became a policeman.

In a nutshell, how would you describe your philosophy on policing?

Collaborative is one word I guess. I don't think we have all the answers. Sometimes I think the public can come up with answers we don't see. A lot of police work is common sense.

Maybe a slightly different viewer prospective can help solve the problem for everybody. Traditionally the public can bring forth a lot of ideas maybe we can help fit within that framework.

That's what I'm looking for, is a community that is talking. And I'm not saying just the community at large, but within the police department, and bring these people together to solve our problems.

What are some of the biggest problems facing Santa Monica from a law enforcement point of view?

I think the homeless confronts the whole community… It's a huge problem, tricky, and it goes far beyond law enforcement into a societal problem.

It's certain that it's a regional problem and I think it has a national basis. I think a lot of homeless come from other parts of the country. The climate, the environment, is a naturally attractive environment for someone who can't help themselves.

A lot of the folks who are homeless have criminal records, mental illness, they have substance abuse issues. I think a lot of people compartmentalize the homeless in one single category. It's actually quite a diverse culture.

So there's a lot of diverse answers to the problem and it's an enormously complex problem.

This is a problem that you have worked on in Long Beach?

Again, because of the complexity, I've worked some parts of this problem. I was more focused on the mental illness side of this and how police interacted with the mentally ill and particularly with the homeless.

Not only do they have mental illness, but often they compound that with some substance abuse, which makes it even more difficult. But they are frequently the most chronically homeless. How do you house them? They frequently destroy property. They have a lot of issues.

So we confront with them a huge problem that there are frequently no answers to, and I certainly don't come here with answers. I come here with an open mind and a willingness to work with other people and see if we can at least help the problem.

Do you have any broader strategies in helping tackle homelessness?

I am still talking with members of the community here and I know that Edward Edelmen (the former County Supervisor who is heading up the City’s regional efforts to tackle homelessness) is here and he still hasn't concluded his work yet. So we are waiting until that is more fully drafted.

But I see it as multiple people and groups working together to try to solve the problem. It's how we get all these different service providers to be on the same page, and not just the providers, but the community at large.

A lot of people want to come out and feed the homeless. That's a good thing in one way, but it's also harmful in other ways. It doesn't allow the different services necessary to reach them, it doesn't help the long-term strategy towards helping these folks stop being homeless, which is what I think most people really and truly want, to end the homelessness problem.

Are there other large problems that Santa Monica is facing?

The gang and youth violence problem. It's not a huge problem. This is not LAPD facing 75,000 gang members and miles and miles and miles of territory. But it is still a problem.

Within a month of my being here, there was a murder, which has disappointed me enormously. (On December 27 Miguel Angel Martin was fatally shot in Virginia Avenue Park.) I have been in the Pico (Neighborhood) many times, and I knew before I got here there was a problem. But the thing I'm sensing from the community is a sense of hope.

The Eddie Lopez murder that happened last year, then this one. They were similar events, but the way they were reacted to was different. And I mean different in a more positive sense. People are talking more now about finding solutions than pointing fingers, and I think that's a huge step.

If all we are doing is pointing fingers at one another, then we'll never get the problem solved. I think everybody's goal is to have a safer community, where people can walk around without getting hurt.

Next: Community relations, the marijuana initiative, and running the department.