Snowden takes over the Hills
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Deirdre Newman
Dave Snowden’s aggressive pursuit of modernizing the Beverly Hills
Police Department as the interim police chief inspired the city to
abort its recruitment process and appoint him as the new police
chief.
Snowden said he is thrilled at the opportunity.
“What I found here is a very professionally run organization that
has pretty much been held back in making progress to the 21st
century,” Snowden said. “Although they’ve got excellent people and
they’ve got a great commitment to policing, they really don’t have
the resources available that they could have if they had gone after
them. Basically, I’ve done that.”
In January, Snowden began serving as the interim chief while
Beverly Hills searched for someone to replace Marvin Iannone, who had
been at the helm for 18 years.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to look very far.
Beverly Hills City Manager Roderick Wood said he liked what he saw
in Snowden. His appointment is contingent on approval by the Beverly
Hills City Council.
Snowden is the perfect choice to address the department’s pressing
needs, Wood said.
“Chief Snowden has been doing an exceptional job in addressing
these current needs,” Wood said, in a press release. “He has gained
the trust and support of the department and most of its personnel in
a very short time.”
Snowden retired from the Costa Mesa Police Department to protect
his retirement benefits, he said.
“I didn’t retire because I wanted to retire. I retired because of
the retirement system,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for the
retirement system, they’d have to cart me out. If I’d waited a little
longer, the way the formula is calculated, I would have lost a lot of
money in my future retirement benefits.”
Some of the changes he has implemented in Beverly Hills include
assigning one of his officers to a countywide task force called L.A.
Impact, which is helping the department tackle a rash of burglaries
in the northern part of the city, he said.
“Two weeks into it, we’ve made significant progress and a few
arrests,” Snowden said.
Snowden also applied for a DUI enforcement grant to help lower the
number of drunk-driving-related accidents in the city.
And he is getting a wealth of support from the community, he said.
“The reception I’ve received from not just the officers, but the
rank-and-file and the community at large, is just incredible,”
Snowden said. “I’ve seldom seen an agency with such strong community
support. ... It’s off the map.”
Snowden said he is not planning on moving to Beverly Hills, but
might get a townhouse to crash at a few nights a week.
“My home and my kids and my wife and family [and] too many friends
to even mention live here [in Costa Mesa],” Snowden said.
Working in Beverly Hills, Snowden has received some good-natured
ribbing from his son and daughter-in-law. They took the Eddie Murphy
poster from the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies and placed Snowden’s face
on Murphy’s body and put it in a musical picture frame. When you push
Snowden’s face, the “Beverly Hills Cop” theme song plays.
* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)
574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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