Life broke Ronald Lowe's heart when his 32-year-old wife died 19 years ago,and again after his 3-year-old son's near-drowning 10 years ago left the boy severely brain-damaged.

It tried to break his will when his alcohol addiction spilled over from personal problem to professional crisis.

It tried to break his spirit when naysayers wagged that his rapid rise in the department was more a matter of color than merit; that better police work on his part would have kept a major drug bust from being tossed out of court; that he lacked the formal college training that his predecessor as chief had. Lowe climbed past all of it, all the way to the top job at the Dayton Police Department at 50. He begins his job today, a job he sees as curbing notonly crime, but the community problems that breed crime.

Dayton police Sgt. Robert Jackson isn't surprised, either, that Lowe keeps turning stumbling blocks into steppingstones. Isn't that what police work is all about, beating back the bad guys? Lowe has fought off devils both outside and in.

A police officer is trained to ignore the taunts, to disregard his own safety. He's trained to do what's right, whatever the circumstances, and Lowe always has been the consummate cop on the corner.

"Ronnie's a street cop," said Jackson, who has known Lowe since joining theforce 19 years ago. Even though he's now chief, Jackson said some officer is liable to find Lowe running back up some night after hearing the call on his home scanner. After 21 years as a cop, Lowe still can't get enough.

That enthusiasm impressed William J. Estabrook, the city manager who hired him for Dayton. It was that enthusiasm plus results that impressed Russell Abolt, the county manager who hired Lowe two years ago as chief for Chatham County, Ga., where Savannah is the largest city.

"He honestly believes he can make a difference," Abolt said.

For Lowe, that's the obligation of being chief in a city where crime is theNo. 1 concern. Now, it's more than "kicking behind and taking names," the way Lowe learned as a patrolman. In a city with more than 50 homicides and 1,200 assaults every year, there are too many names to take.

"You still do that," Lowe said, "but the majority of policing now is to deal with what's causing some of the problems and trying to solve them. We have to take the lead on what's happening in society."

So Lowe was a key proponent in the defensible space program to build barriers and speed bumps to halt crime in the Five Oaks neighborhood. Lowe implemented Dayton's first bicycle patrol unit, and in Chatham County, established the first community-based precincts.

"I was called a visionary," he said, making it clear the comment was not meant as a compliment. When he spoke up for blocking off streets, Dayton police responded it would make Five Oaks harder to patrol.

Yes, Lowe agreed, "but we're here to benefit the community," not the other way around. "That's a change in mind-set that has to come about."

Besides, he's been called worse, "and I will be again," he said. He expectsit. Criticism comes with the job, like driving rain on midnight patrol. Lowe lets them both roll off.

Police-community contact

He knows he will make mistakes, and so will the 486 officers who call him chief. "I don't believe in dwelling on mistakes," Lowe said. "It's OK to take risks and fail. You don't want anyone to fail. But it's going to happen, and you don't want people to be afraid of failing."

Lowe learned that in Chatham County, when he launched a whirlwind of initiatives in a jurisdiction eager to do things differently. While Lowe was chief, his department put officers in the junior high and high schools. It developed a special unit that curbed gang activity. It formed a bomb squad andexpanded its marine patrol.

Most of all, Lowe embraces the concept of community policing - as a way of getting officers back in touch with the people they serve. Community policing isn't a radical experiment, Lowe says, so much as a nostalgic return to the time when beat cops knew neighbors by name.

If the officers know residents, Lowe said, they might be able to see bad blood heating up before it boils over into assault or homicide. If they know the kids, they might be able to advise them without making eyes roll. Lowe is looking into a Dayton school program similar to Chatham County's, where officers in the schools are there to "let the kids see they'rehuman," he said. They even teach some classes.

Lowe takes a community approach to drug enforcement, too. "We're going to go after the people bringing it into the community," he said, but besides taking drugs off the streets, he wants to keep them off. That means more than just paddy wagon cleanups of street corner dealers.

"You fix the street lights that are broken, get rid of the abandoned cars, do something about that dilapidated house," he said. "You work with every department in the city."

To Lowe, police work is removing obstacles. Criminals are obstacles to society. But poverty and indifference are obstacles to a crime-free life, and they have to go, too.

Lowe's biggest personal obstacle was alcohol.

His brother, Princeton, remembers the day Lowe's wife, Carolyn, thought shehad indigestion. Her chest hurt, but Lowe said she'd been sick for a while. She lay down. "That wasn't like Carolyn," Princeton said. She was having a heart attack. She died three days later, on July 16, 1976, leaving Lowe to look after four children, the oldest age 12.

"I think that triggered his alcoholism," Princeton said. So does Lowe. From May 1976 through March 1981, Lowe was suspended nine times for a totalof 38 days, usually for being late or absent. Sometimes Princeton's phone ranglate at night with someone telling him he'd better go drive Ronnie home. On Sept. 11, 1981, Lowe appeared to be drunk at roll call.

"I did not have an unforgiving attitude," said former Chief Tyree S. Broomfield, deputy director at the time and in charge of discipline. "I would tell him, 'Your rope is growing shorter and shorter.' I was not tolerant of people who did not reflect well on the department."

But Broomfield liked Lowe's initiative when he was sober. They agreed he would go into treatment, with Lowe taking a 58-day unpaid leave that was laterdeclared a suspension.

"It was a true learning experience," Lowe said. "It enabled me to take a totally different look at what was going on around me.

"It taught me not to judge other people. Not only people who are chemicallydependent, but people who are economically dependent or have other deprivations. It taught me to understand and appreciate how people get into situations."

He knows people watch him when the pressure builds, wondering if he'll break again. "And it doesn't even cross my mind," he said.

"He went from one extreme to another," Princeton said, back to the spiritual roots of their parents. "I like him better now."

Before Estabrook hired Lowe, he paged through Lowe's stack of commendationssince 1981. He saw the times Lowe went beyond his assignment to track down thebad guy or comfort the victim. "He came out of tragedy and kept soaring, and it takes a lot to do that," Estabrook said. He considers the chief a good rolemodel in a job where alcoholism is an occupational hazard.

"Most officers are going to experience something so traumatic that they're never going to forget it," Lowe said. "I've seen a lot of death. I've seen some good friends die. I've seen some pretty horrific things. You don't talk about them. You push them back. But you never forget them."

He does recall one time, when a 3-year-old boy was hit by a car but jumped up and ran to his mommy. Didn't have a mark on him. Twenty minutes later, the radio dispatcher said the boy had died.

"You think about it. You see it. You have kids of your own. You have flashbacks at times. But you have to turn it off."

Some traumas end happily. Lowe received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1984, when he reached down and grabbed a man who had pushed himself off a parking garage. "About two weeks later it dawned on me, he could have pulled me off, too," Lowe said.

He couldn't have gotten close to the man without his partner's help, Lowe said. "She should have gotten a medal, too."

The sensitivity stays, no matter how deep he buries the memories. Sometimesit's an obstacle. It's hard to find bad guys, squinting through tears. But it's also hard to manage the good guys without understanding them.

Morale improved while Lowe was in Georgia. He did little things: Held gripesessions. Allowed mustaches. Allowed officers to wear athletic shoes or boots on patrol.

He identifies with officers, but can he discipline them?

"I always try to be firm and fair," Lowe said. It was one of his father's favorite expressions. He has punished his buddies when necessary. He even wrote himself a reprimand his first month on the job in Georgia, for hitting acivilian's car while learning the streets.

Lowe has a linebacker's build with a librarian's tone, the kind of man who can yell without raising his voice. He's an innovator grounded in the basics. He has put friends in jail and given hugs to strangers. He's a man of paradox.

"We used to call him Starsky and Hutch," Princeton said. "They were cops onTV. One was laid-back and the other was reckless, and Ronnie was all that rolled up in one."

If there's one thing most people agree on about Lowe, it's that he's a niceguy. Even in eighth grade, he was big enough and charming enough to sweet-talka high school senior girl into going out with him.

"Ronnie was a terror in his day," Princeton said. He figured out how to come away from the bakery with free cookies, and at one time, Princeton said, "He ran the streets because I ran the streets, and I was five years older." Even now, Princeton said people Lowe once arrested ask how Ronnie's doing.

The family of nine shared a three-bedroom house in the Edgemont neighborhood, and they were close in more ways than proximity. Lowe was a fullback on Dunbar High School's city championship football team and a singer in the church choir. He sounded like Otis Redding and played the piano in nightclubs, Princeton said.

No one could talk him into taking up college football, Princeton said, so that's his latest controversy. His only degrees are from LaSalle University insuburban New Orleans, an unaccredited correspondence school.

"That gets old," he said.

He's a graduate of the FBI Academy and a former Urban Fellow, and friends on the force remember his encouraging them to join him in college courses. "I can't think of a chief candidate with better credentials," said Russell Abolt, his Chatham County boss. "That's just baloney."

So, says Abolt, is the whispering around Dayton that he might just be a grateful yes man to the new regime at City Hall. Barbara Meadows, a longtime friend from the Innerwest Priority Board, laughs. "He won't do something he doesn't believe in," she said. "That showed in the big drug bust he made."

Lowe still hears criticism for the 1992 arrest that was dismissed because he didn't have legal "probable cause," only a hunch that led him to search a suspect's car and house.

The search and the evidence were thrown out, but 34 pounds of cocaine were off the streets. His new boss, Estabrook, called Lowe's actions "more than admirable."

"He got a commendation from the department and awards from the community," Estabrook said.

Abolt expects more to come, and without disputes. "I mean nationally," he said. "He can be a real leader in innovative policing."

HIS CAREER * Who: Ronald Lowe Sr., Dayton's new police chief.

* Age: 50

* Police career: Became a recruit soon after graduation; promoted to police officer on June 17, 1974. After six years, became a special investigations detective. Three years later, in 1983, promoted to patrol sergeant. Became a major in 1987, then left in 1993 to become chief in Chatham County, Ga.

HIS GOALS * Let citizens know how the police can help them. "The No. 1 priority is to put the police department in touch with the entire community."

* Take drugs out of the neighborhoods. Of the people who bring drugs into Dayton, he says, "None of them are going to be safe."

* Reach out to kids, possibly by putting officers in the schools. "We have to get our kids to understand that policemen are not their enemy."

* Implement programs to assure the police department treats everyone equally, including "those who are a little less fortunate than others or different in their beliefs, color and economic status."

* Create an environment where the department rids itself of improper conduct.

* Encourage cooperation among all city departments.