‘Crimefighter’s Hotline’ On the Radio : Officer Delivers an Arresting Performance Over the Airwaves

It was almost 8 p.m. and Stan McGarry had run out of things to say.

The police captain quickly scanned his notes and found nothing that he hadn’t already told his listeners. His stories about patrolling South-Central Los Angeles with then-police officer, now author, Joseph Wambaugh were getting old, and his warnings about not dumping trash in the foothills north of the San Fernando Valley had lost their urgency.

Finally, the hour was over and McGarry, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, sank into his chair and let out a sigh of relief.

“God, those last few minutes were tough, really a struggle,” McGarry said. “You can only stammer and hem and haw your way for so long.”

McGarry, a 24-year police veteran, has been moonlighting for the last 2 1/2 months at the Cable Radio Network in Sunland, where he has been given an hour’s talk show on Saturday nights titled “Crimefighter’s Hotline.”

Community Relations

The show, designed by McGarry to augment the Police Department’s community relations work, lets listeners call in and talk to the captain and his weekly guest about law enforcement and crime. Some callers gripe about police tactics, others want to know how to avoid being victims of crime. Still others “just want to chew the fat with a cop,” McGarry said.

Station manager Mike Horn said the talk show has proven to be a hit so far, judging by the steady, although erratic, flow of calls and the need to lengthen the show to 60 minutes. In its first few weeks it ran for only half an hour. But for McGarry, who had no previous radio experience, the transition from full-time police official to part-time talk show host has been difficult.

“I try to pattern myself after Michael Jackson over at KABC,” McGarry said during a commercial break in last week’s show. “But it’s tough. Silence on the airwaves is the cardinal sin, and the fear of drawing a blank is my biggest worry.” McGarry’s on-air demeanor may not be as polished as Jackson’s, but Horn said the fledgling broadcaster shows promise.

‘New Kid on the Block’

“He’s one of the new kids on the block, but he’s doing a great job so far,” Horn said. “He’s honest, human and natural and doesn’t appear at all self-conscious when he’s on the air. . . . He could go places.”

Horn said he recruited McGarry to host the show earlier this year to give the community better access to police and as a promotional device, since he knew of no other radio station in Southern California that has a talk show hosted by a top police official.

The show can be heard by people who either own satellite dishes or get Cable Radio Network as part of their cable TV program package, Horn said.

The show has a potential listening audience of about 500,000 people, although station sales manager Roz Nelson estimated that only “a couple of hundred” people tune in each week to hear the police captain.

The police show, which airs from 7 to 8 p.m., usually begins with McGarry, 45, giving a brief roundup of the week’s crime in the Foothill Division, where officers patrol a 63-square-mile area in the northeast Valley. McGarry then introduces his guest, usually an LAPD detective specializing in a particular type of crime, such as child abuse or forgery.

Lottery a Recent Topic

The two talk for about 10 or 15 minutes and then open the lines for callers. One recent night, a La Crescenta man who identified himself only as Joe wanted to talk about the state lottery and what sort of crimes police could expect from the new form of gambling.

McGarry told Joe to beware of counterfeit tickets that may crop up and said a rise in burglaries at places that sell the tickets can be expected. “Ya know, Joe, we’re going to have problems because people may go overboard and become compulsive about the lottery,” McGarry told his listener.

Another caller, Pete, a truck driver from Lake View Terrace, wanted to know about late-night police stakeouts at bars in his neighborhood. McGarry explained that when officers receive a complaint about a certain bar, they stake it out 12 times over a period of six weeks to determine whether there is a problem at the bar. But Pete was looking for a quarrel.

“They look for people coming out of the bars and they harass them, asking how many drinks they’ve had and stuff like that,” Pete charged, adding that police look for any small violation to detain a customer, such as an inoperable light over their car’s license plate. “That’s really a cheap way out,” Pete said.

But McGarry did not back down and, in a stern tone, told Pete that “a complaint’s a complaint,” and police have to respond.

Most of McGarry’s callers are concerned about crime in their neighborhoods and ask what they can do about troublemakers. “If you get a Dennis the Menace type of kid who throws rocks at your cat, give us a call. The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” McGarry told a Pacoima woman who was having trouble with a mischievous young neighbor.

But it is the time between calls that tests McGarry’s talent as a radio broadcaster, he said. During these periods, which may be as long as 10 to 15 minutes, he talks off the cuff from notes on often-controversial cases, such as the Night Stalker, that he has jotted down before the show. “I’m not looking for controversy, but I do try to get my listeners riled up.”

At the request of McGarry, who does not get paid for the show, on Oct. 30 “Crimefighter’s Hotline” will be moved to Wednesdays at 6 p.m. to keep the show from conflicting with prime-time TV.

Despite the show’s success, McGarry says his career at the microphone will end when he retires from the police force in about 15 months.

“I’m a beekeeper in my spare time--have a lot of them (beehives) down around San Diego,” he said. “ . . . I’m having a good time with the radio show, but I’ve got beehives to think about.”