This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In 1968, the police department in Menlo Park, California hired a new police chief.

His name was Victor Cizanquez. And Chief Cizanquez's main goal was to

reform the police department's image, which wasn't great at the time. That's our own Delaney Hall. Because this was the 1960s, and even in Menlo Park, a small city with manicured lawns and wide suburban streets,

it had been a turbulent decade.

There were big student-led anti-war demonstrations at Stanford University, which is right nearby.

Joan Baez, the folksinger, created a commune called Struggle Mountain in the foothills above the city, and leaders in the African American community were organizing protests to demand better treatment and services.

The Menlo Park Police had clashed with these protesters, sometimes violently. And after years and years of this,

the department had a pretty rough reputation.

Had a reputation for being a very tough police department, a very aggressive police department, and somewhat of a very aggressive police department and somewhat of a very anti-race kind of a police

department.

That's Dominic Poloso.

He was hired in 1970 by Chief Czenkis, the guy who wanted to change this culture.

He was one of these type of guys that would come into a room and would just fill in the room,

you know, and everybody kind of stits back and says, I think we better listen and go along with this guy.

Chief Cizanquez had hired Dominic right out of the Jesuit seminary, where Dominic had been studying to be a priest.

Sizankis liked hiring officers from non-traditional law enforcement

backgrounds and with higher levels of education.

It was just one of his strategies for reforming the department.

He also let his officers grow their hair out and have beards and mustaches. He changed all

the pseudo-military titles to more corporate ones.

Sargents became managers, for example, and lieutenants became directors.

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