California Police Chief- Fall 2013 CPCA_2017_Winter Magazine Final | Page 26

Hawthorne Police Department Pioneers
Successful Community Programs
When was the last time you took a serious look at the value your agency brings to your constituency?
Meaningful value. To start, are you meeting “community needs” based upon your ideals or theirs? If funding
became scarce, would they fight to keep you as their policing entity? Does your staff apply any focus to this
and look to generate “good-will” deposits as they engage the public? These are the foundational questions
that Robert Fager posed within his Organization and its then-mission as he entered the Chief’s Office in 2010.
As a career-long Hawthorne PD veteran, he already knew these answers. And h