Pupils DARE to Be Pals of Police

Two policemen who set out to teach the evils of drugs to schoolchildren from a tough North Hollywood area discovered Friday that their pupils had learned an unexpected lesson.

“I found out that police are not as mean as you think,” said 12-year-old Adam Stogen. “I was scared of the law before because they can bust you. But I won’t be afraid of them anymore.”

Adam is one of 155 sixth-graders from Fair Avenue Elementary School who on Friday completed an eight-week, anti-drug education program taught by Los Angeles Police Officers Richard Stocks and Tom Lendzion.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education project--dubbed “DARE” by police and Los Angeles Unified School District officials--has counseled more than 200,000 elementary school children in weekly campus visits since 1983.

But Stocks and Lendzion were at Fair Avenue school daily this summer as they compressed a semester-long, anti-narcotics curriculum into two months to fit into the school’s year-round instruction schedule.

Safety Tips, Chats

Beside their lectures to sixth-graders on the importance of saying no to drugs, the two officers were available to teach safety tips to younger children at the 1,160-student school and for friendly chats at lunch and games at recess.

By Friday, the pair had literally hopscotched their way into hundreds of young hearts. “Tom came home every night and soaked his feet after playing out on the playground,” said Lendzion’s wife, Randi.

Some children had tears in their eyes as they shook hands with the two officers and received certificates for completing the program. Ignoring the cake served to mark the occasion, others clustered about the two uniformed officers for autographs. The officers repeatedly were asked to pose for photos for children armed with Instamatic cameras.

Many children pressed handwritten thank-you notes in the officers’ hands. Ten-year-old Romannette Reyes slipped the two a pair of gaily wrapped coffee mugs and thanked them “for teaching us how to say no to things that can hurt us.” The mugs featured a frog drawing and the slogan, “Don’t smoke or you’ll croak.”

“Those two are celebrities around here,” said Randy Benigno, curriculum coordinator for Fair Avenue school. “The kids loved those guys. All they had to do was walk out on the grounds and they’d get hugs. The kids were very comfortable with them. It’s certainly changed some minds about police in this neighborhood.”

Principal Mary Bardsley said one boy was crying as he said goodby to the two officers and told them, “I guess I’ll never see you again.” “They have had such an impact on the idea of police just being authority figures,” Bardsley said.

Police officials say rapport-building was not the goal of the DARE program when it was created in 1983.

Follow-Up Planned

“It was certainly clear today that they’ve broken down some of the barriers, though,” said Capt. William Gartland, commander of North Hollywood Division, whose officers patrol the Fair Avenue neighborhood that is on the fringe of a high-crime industrial area. “We’re usually seen as the punishers by kids.”

Sgt. Don Van Velzer, a Police Department coordinator of the DARE program, said the results of the anti-drug effort will not be known for a few more years--when follow-up studies are done with participants. Funded by the Police Department and a state grant, the DARE project will place officers in 69 schools next month when the new semester begins.

Stocks, 36, of Arleta, said the firsthand exposure to police was an eye-opener to many Fair Avenue pupils.

“At first, they were very inquisitive. Most of their experience with police has been negative. But they realize that we eat, that we’re human beings just like them. Then comes the trust. We really became close to the kids,” Stocks said.

He and Lendzion, 37, of Simi Valley, also became close to campus staff members. They used their own money to buy $12 medallions to thank teachers and administrators Friday.

The officers said their reward came from students who offered their own public commitments during the ceremony.

“I know how to take a stand and show everyone I know what’s right,” said Christine MacLean, 11. “I’ll think of the consequences before I take a risk. No matter what, I’ll never misuse drugs.”