Wednesday, November 25, 1970
Beginning next Tuesday, Dec. 1, Sheriff’s patrol cars will no longer be seen in the loop area between 7 in the morning and 10 at night. In their place will be the I.V. Foot Patrol.

Two members of the patrol will be on duty at a time, five days a week. There are 12 members altogether, six from the Sheriff’s Department and six from the Campus Police. The Sheriff’s deputies are funded by a federal grant and the campus officers operate under a recent allocation by the regents.

All the patrol members will be volunteers and are to be headed by Sergeant Jay Moore. Moore is 33 years old and has a B.A. in sociology.

As the make up of the patrol might indicate, it is basically an attempt to improve police/community relations – relations which have been noticeably strained in the past. In addition, the Sheriff’s Department is holding a training course to prepare the officers for I.V. duty.

The major portion of the course consists of lectures and “rap sessions” with people recruited from I.V. and the university. [UCSB Vice Chancellor of Business, Finance and Isla Vista Affairs] Ray Varley, musicians, people active in the counter-culture art and a few people who have had dealings with the police in Isla Vista are participating.

Topics of discussion were widely varied, ranging from sex, drugs and rock music, to community feelings about the police and “the pig as oppressor.”

According to one of the participants who is not a policeman, many of the speakers emphasized the discretionary power of the police and tried to make a distinction between acts not affecting anyone but the actor – such as homosexual behavior between consenting adults or smoking marijuana – and other crimes.

He added that he felt that to some degree they had managed to get their arguments across to the policemen.

Many people appear to have high hopes as to what the Patrol can accomplish. Sheriff-elect John Carpenter, for instance, in a recent statement to the press said he hoped the Foot Patrol could cut into the heroin problem.

Sergeant Moore reaffirmed this, saying the patrol would be active in trying to stop the heroin traffic and that he imagined arrests would be made. The Sergeant hoped the patrolman’s presence would cut down on street sales and a reduction of the heroin problem would slow the burglary rate.

Even with such high hopes for the Foot Patrol, restraint will have to be exercised on both sides if it is to succeed.