Police Chief Johansen Announces Retirement

After nearly 10 years at the helm, Palos Verdes Estates Police Chief Gary E. Johansen has announced that he will retire next April.

Johansen, 54, whose tenure has been marked by a low crime rate in the city of 14,000, said he plans to move to Bend, Ore., where he hopes to teach at a junior college.

“I want to do something that doesn’t take 50 or 60 hours a week and doesn’t have the stress,” Johansen, a former high school instructor, said Wednesday.

Palos Verdes Estates has not had a homicide in at least five years, Johansen said.

But the Police Department was rocked with violence more than three years ago when a gunman entered a police officers seminar in a Torrance hotel and fatally shot two Palos Verdes Estates officers. Johansen witnessed the shootings.

“Seeing something like this makes you look at your priorities,” said the police chief, who is leaving a $78,000-a-year job that included a free house overlooking the ocean.