Strong Arm Of The Law : Simi Valley Police Officer Mike Bender Is One Tough Cop in One quiet Town-but Don’t Ask Him to Prove It.

Mike Bender is a police detective in Simi Valley, a usually peaceful community with the lowest crime rate in Ventura County. Bender spends a lot of time tracking down missing hubcaps, speaking at local schools and writing reports.

He never gets a chance to tell a young punk to go ahead and make his day, except in his daydreams. When he daydreams, he comes up with those improbable scenarios that usually happen in Hollywood, not Simi Valley. One might go something like this:

A motorcycle gang is terrorizing a little old lady. Bender arrives in nondescript civvies and lectures them on the benefits of fair play. When they’re finished laughing in his boyish face, they suggest numerous horrible possibilities that await his body. Bender isn’t worried. Jaw set, not a single blond hair out of place, he calls their bluff. They come at him. It’s immediately apparent that they’ve made a major miscalculation. The survivors run for it. Bender chases them down, slaps on the cuffs.

“Who was that guy?” a stunned biker gasps.

“Buddy,” he’s told, “you just tangled with the toughest cop alive.”

And that’s no daydream. Last August in San Jose, Bender defeated 185 competitors from 26 states and six countries to win the Toughest Cop Alive contest at the biennial World Police and Fire Games. But entrants were not judged on pistol-whipping, billy-clubbing or the ability to put a .357 magnum slug between a perpetrator’s eyes. It’s only in running, jumping and lifting weights that Bender makes Dirty Harry look like a wimp.

The world’s Toughest Cop Alive is chosen for athletic prowess in eight events. When the competition began six years ago, it was only for members of the Los Angeles Police Department. Two years later, cops from all over California were invited. Then, cops from the rest of the nation. The San Jose games were the first to open up the event to the world.

Gendarmes from France. Bobbies from England. It doesn’t make any difference to Bender. The event has been held seven times. Bender has always won. When they added up the scores at San Jose, he was 450 points ahead of his nearest competitor, perennial runner-up Eugene Arreola of the LAPD.

Bender is one finely-tuned athlete. But only in his daydreams is he Dirty Harry.

“The T-shirt they give you says ‘TCA,’ not ‘Toughest Cop Alive,’ and I’m glad,” Bender said. “I’m always afraid I’d be out somewhere and someone would say ‘Prove it.’ ”

Larry Moore invented the contest. “A lot of officers don’t like the ‘Toughest Cop Alive’ title,” he said. “They think of it as a macho thing. But it’s more of a description of the contest than the man.”

In 1980, after spending seven years as a motorcycle officer in the Valley, Moore transferred to the police academy and became the LAPD’s athletic director. His partner, Chuck Foote, had what Moore calls “an irritating saying.” In any situation, Foote would refer to himself as “the toughest man alive.” One day, Moore had a brainstorm.

“It just popped right out of there like all good ideas,” Moore said. “An event that’s challenging but involves the athletic things a police officer needs to perform his daily functions--like strength, agility and endurance, especially if he has to run after someone and gets into an altercation. I never imagined it would become the premier athletic contest in the department.

“The quality of the athletes is so good and the competition so severe that the average guy can’t compete anymore,” he said.

But not even the great athletes in the department, like Arreola, have had much of a chance against Bender. Built compactly like a running back at 6-foot-1 and 181 pounds, Bender has a slim waist, big, well-defined arms and a powerful chest--the result of lifting weights for 15 years.

But anyone who knew him in high school would be surprised to hear about his athletic success. At Royal High in Simi Valley, Bender was just another jock. In fact, the zenith of his high school athletic career was 11th grade, when he was a reserve offensive tackle and once in a while won the shotput event by throwing the 12-pounder about 50 feet.

“I was a late bloomer,” said Bender, 30. “But maybe that’s why I didn’t burn out on sports. Most of the guys who were super athletes in high school are fat today and don’t even work out.”

Bender didn’t have much time for sports in high school. Although nobody in his family had been a cop, Bender, for reasons he can’t fathom, “always wanted to be one.” A lot of kids want to be cops or firemen or sportswriters. Most come to their senses. Bender never changed his mind, although he did give up his goal to become a motorcycle cop because, he said, “It’s too dangerous.”

In high school, while his friends were concentrating on sports, Bender was gearing up for a career. He was a member of the Law Enforcement Explorers and the LAPD reserves. At Cal State Los Angeles, he studied criminal justice (but regrets never trying out for the decathlon). After graduating, he entered the Los Angeles Police Academy.

During high school and college, Bender was getting ready for the physical demands of police work by running and lifting weights. It all paid off when he became the first recruit in the history of the academy to get a perfect score on the physical fitness qualification test.

“I’m a firm believer in staying in shape for law enforcement,” he said. “I don’t like seeing fat policemen, but more and more guys in the department are working out these days. It’s a pretty trendy thing.

“But if you’re a police officer, staying in shape is also important for another reason. When you’re in shape, you have an extra quart of blood in your system. If you get shot, you’re less likely to die or go into shock.”

Curling 105 pounds almost effortlessly, Bender is going through a 75-minute workout in the cavernous weight room at the Oakridge Racquet Club in Simi Valley. It’s a Monday, so he concentrates on his chest, back and biceps. At 6:30 a.m., while other cops are dreaming about busting drug dealers, Bender is busting his butt at the gym, four days a week. It is a routine he has maintained for years.

“I’d just be sleeping otherwise,” he said.

Three times a week on his lunch hour, Bender runs about three miles over rough terrain. Twice a week after working the day shift, he swims 2,000 meters. Then he takes a human development course at Moorpark College, studies, cooks and takes care of his 17-month-old daughter--he has joint custody with his ex-wife, who is also a police officer. On the weekends, Bender water skis, surfs and plays racquetball. In his spare time, he studies hapkido, judo and karate.

And three months before a TCA event, he really gets serious about getting in shape.

“I’ll still lift four times a week,” he said, “but I’ll do higher reps. I’ll also do sprints. Twice a week, I’ll do all the events (in the TCA) and go to the academy to practice on the obstacle course.”

What makes the TCA competition even more difficult is that all eight events are held in one day. Strength, agility and endurance. Moore has designed an event that would challenge Bruce Jenner: It starts with a three-mile cross-country run (“we’ve held some pretty devastating ones,” Moore said), followed by the shotput (16 pounds), 100-yard dash, 100-yard swim, 20-foot rope climb (hands only), bench press and pull-ups. It ends with the obstacle course, which is 761 exhausting feet long.

“The ‘Superstars’ event (on ABC television) has an obstacle course that’s short in comparison,” Moore said. “They run theirs in 25 seconds. Bender had our best time: 58 seconds.”

Bender is hoping to get an appearance on “Superstars,” and he feels he has a chance to do well because he’s so versatile. Three years ago at the state police and fireman’s power-lifting competition, he came in second in his weight class--dead-lifting 440 pounds, squatting with 405, bench-pressing 355.

In 13 years in law enforcement, Bender has never had to fire his gun in anger. Once, a slightly altered version of his daydream came true when Bender chased a burglary suspect half a mile through backyards and down streets before collaring him. Generally, however, trouble avoids Bender.

“If you look like you’re in shape and you’re not cocky about it,” he said, “you’re less likely to have problems. But I can handle myself. I’m not Mr. Nice Guy (as an officer). I’ve had my share of fights, but I’ve never been hurt or had my clock cleaned. I guess I’ve just been lucky.

“I do get challenged with runs all the time. Kids think they can run circles around police officers. A kid’ll say, ‘I shoulda run. I coulda got away.’ Sometimes, I wish they would run. Then I can chase them down.”

Although he’s a physical fitness fanatic, Bender doesn’t stuff himself full of health foods. “When I trained for the world games, I bought ‘Eat to Win,’ ” he said, “but actually, I feel better when I eat junk. I love doughnuts. The guys (on the force) say they get fat watching me eat.”

It’s the police department in Simi Valley that’s urging Bender not to retire from TCA competition. “There’s pressure on me to continue,” he said. But Bender feels that the San Jose event was his last. The workouts, the long, hard hours and the pain are getting to him.

“I’m kind of hoping for the day that I won’t be doing this anymore,” he said. “I’ll be glad when it happens.”

Anyway, there are other worlds to conquer.

“The police water-skiing Olympics takes place next year in Newport Beach,” he said. “I want to win it.”

If he does, he’ll be the world’s toughest cop on water skis.