BOAT BEAT : It’s Anchors Aweigh as Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol Casts About for Crime in Marina del Rey

This is the marina--Marina del Rey, California.

It’s a big marina, said to be “the largest man-made recreational harbor in the world.” Most of the 6,500 pleasure boats here are seaworthy; most of the boaters are decent, law-abiding folks. But some aren’t. That’s where John Rochford comes in.

Rochford carries the badge of a sheriff’s deputy and works the boat beat. His summer uniform is a white T-shirt, green shorts, white socks and white tennis shoes. His duties on a recent Saturday seemed to consist mainly of tooling his patrol boat around the marina, detaining boaters with expired registrations and joking with the jetty fishermen.

“Know the best spot to catch ‘em?” Rochford calls out. The fisherman doesn’t but wants to. “Right here,” the deputy responds--hooking a finger into his mouth.

An old one, but it worked again.

Rochford’s partner is Steve Martinez. His uniform is the same--but under his shirt he wears a bulletproof vest.

“Personal choice,” Martinez explains. “It’s really uncomfortable. But I tell my wife I’d rather be hot in this than hot in a coffin.”

Sail-by shootings aren’t much of a concern out here. But the fact that Martinez worries about gun-toting boaters and Rochford doesn’t, at least not much, says something about marina law enforcement these days. Five years have passed since the 25-member harbor patrol, formerly a division of the county Beaches and Harbors Department, got swallowed up by the massive Sheriff’s Department to save money and improve efficiency.

“April Fools’ Day of 1984,” Rochford recalls. “That’s when the sheriff got a navy.” Boaters fretted that their friendly neighborhood harbor patrol, which had put problem-solving first and crime busting second, would adopt a hard-nosed, just-the-facts-ma’am attitude. The spirit of the sea, they say, is one of freedom.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Rick Blevins puts it another way: “Boating is the last bastion of lawlessness.” It was only 2 1/2 years ago, he points out, that drunken boating became illegal.

So far, the merger has been gradual and produced only the occasional spat between boaters and lawmen. Whatever controversy remains seems to linger mainly within the Marina Sheriff’s Station.

Few Arrests

“We’re lucky if we make one or two arrests a month,” Rochford says. Some street deputies, he says, “look at that and say, ‘You’re no cop.’ ”

Rochford keeps his armored vest on the boat, ready to wear on the occasion of a “hot call.”

Deputies assigned to patrol cars, Martinez says, “have a lot of jealousy about the jobs the boat deputies have. They think the job is cushy. I know. Because that’s what I thought.”

Martinez has since developed a new respect for the high level of skills required for the harbor patrol, he says. True, the pace is not exactly grueling. But to qualify as a harbor patrolman, Martinez had to complete more than 400 hours of nautical training and achieve certification as an emergency medical technician.

Many street deputies want a chance at harbor patrol. Martinez figures he had an edge because he was already a certified scuba diver and could be useful on dives. A career-minded deputy, Martinez figures a stint in a patrol boat will help him climb the ladder.

Like other harbor patrolmen, Rochford was told that cross-training for street duty would open career doors. It was their choice. Rochford didn’t bite.

“I like the water, the boats, the people around boats,” he explained while puttering down the main channel. A club of outriggers, powered by flailing paddles, headed toward the docks. Meanwhile, a row of “cigarette” speedboats capable of doing 100 m.p.h. were easing out toward the open sea.

Sinking Boat

Hopes of watching the speedboats roar down the coast on this sunny morning were spoiled by a distress call: a boat sinking in its mooring. Within minutes the two patrolmen cruised over to the leaky boat, hooked up pumps and contacted the owner. Sometimes, Rochford says, harbor patrol is “like the Auto Club for boats.”

Like firefighters, they are geared to respond to emergencies.

The true test for the harbor patrol, Rochford says, comes during a sudden storm, such as the time a sailboat lost its mast in 15-foot seas just outside the marina. The ocean was so rough it took more than an hour to reach the boat, another three hours to tow it in. They probably saved two lives that day, he says.

No sudden storm this morning. For the harbor patrol, some days carry “the danger of becoming complacent,” Rochford said.

Complacency can prove fatal. It was a false sense of security, some lawmen believe, that cost Patrolman Harold Edgington his life in 1979, back in the days when the harbor patrol also policed parking in the marina. As the story goes, Edgington was writing up parking tickets when a crazed man came at him with a buck knife. Edgington was struggling to get his pistol out of his holster when the man slashed his throat.

The assailant was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy later that day.

Veteran harbor Patrolman Harvey Baron said Edgington’s mistake was letting the man into his “kill zone.” “As soon as he got within 10 feet,” Baron said, “he should have shot him.” Only two years ago, two boat deputies shot and killed a gunman in a confrontation at a marina apartment complex.

Saved Boat

This morning, Rochford and Martinez would detain two sailboats and a dinghy for registration problems. Mark Wittcoff, on his sailboat Dreamer, smiled when he recognized Rochford. “You can give me all the tickets you want,” the sailor said. Only a few weeks earlier, Wittcoff said, Rochford and a deckhand had saved his boat from going under. He was sailing alone near the Santa Monica Pier when he noticed a foot of water below deck. Rochford and a deckhand diagnosed the problem (a disconnected drain hose from the sink), fixed it, emptied the water and sent Wittcoff on his way.

Martinez marvels at such encounters.

“In seven years on the street, I’ve counted three ‘thank yous,’ ” Martinez says. “Here, you get ‘thank yous’ every day.

“You don’t go home so much thinking the world is a bad place.”

Still, Martinez has no plans to take off his armor.

Unless, of course, he has to go for a swim.