Where Suspicion Once Ruled, Cops and Kids Find Common Ground : Youth: Boys who might have turned to gangs are playing baseball, basketball and football. Police officers are the coaches.

Ten-year-old Timothy Prado use to spend his free time talking to friends, watching cartoons or battling imaginary demons that inhabit the world of video games. Timothy was bored, but he had few alternatives. Recreational activities for kids his age were scarce and expensive in his Southwest Los Angeles neighborhood.

“There are no Little Leagues in (Southwest Los Angeles) like there are in the suburbs,” said Deputy Police Chief William Rathburn, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau.

The sports programs that did exist cost between $40 and $60, far beyond the price range of many families in the community.

But six months ago police officers in the Southwest Division’s community relations office started a free sports league to give youngsters something to do with their extra time and energy. The league offers kids 9 to 13 the opportunity to play baseball, basketball and flag football with police acting as coaches, referees and role models.

“I want them to see positive role models,” said Sgt. Edgar Payne, who heads the community relations office. “I want them to see an (alternative) to . . . drugs and violence.”

Although the sports league is still very new, it has already made an impact on the kids, the parks and the community’s perception of the police.

One sunny Saturday at Rancho La Cienega Park, Timothy, his friends and teammates gathered for their first big football game. On the sideline, Officer Edward Crockett handed out jerseys from a large cardboard box, gold and green for the 52nd Street team, blue and white for the Creative Learning Center team. The boys crowded around him, eager to put on the only semblance of a uniform that the league can afford.

“We’re going to wash ‘em and then hang ‘em out to dry,” said Dwight Walker, a 10-year-old student at 52nd Street elementary school, of the competition.

“Nah, man, we’re going to hang them on a hanger,” another team member said.

“I probably could run under their legs,” Sean Franklin said of the big boys on the other team.

But the toughest Creative Learning Center player is also the smallest. It is Timothy, who, as the quarterback for the Creative Learning Center team, calls the plays, directs the action, moves the ball. What he lacks in size he makes up for in heart, his coach, Officer Robert Baptista, said.

“Hey, Timmy, run those plays I taught you,” he shouted across the field as the team warmed up.

At times Baptista seems more like a proud father than a police officer coaching youngsters in a community league.

Timmy squatted and, in a voice almost too big for his 4-foot-6 body, he barked the commands.

“Ready, set, hike!”

The ball was hiked and he threw a pass that connected.

“Thata boy, Timmy,” Baptista said.

Kneeling on the grass, with his arm draped around Timmy’s shoulder, Baptista gave a few more words of advice before the game started. Timmy eagerly took it in before running back for the kickoff.

“If he does something wrong he always gets up there and he tries again,” Baptista said. “He’s not afraid to fail.”

Baptista speaks with pride of the other players on his team. Though not all are endowed with great throwing arms or speed, they are enthusiastic about the game and have worked hard to learn complicated plays.

The boys played with intensity and determination, passing, blocking and yanking flags as if a Super Bowl ring would be the reward. In the end, the score was Creative Learning Center 24, 52nd Street 0.

“We need some more big people on our team,” theorized a sullen Desmond Polk of the undersized 52nd Street team.

To the parents, more important than winning or losing is the fact that the boys now have something constructive to do with their time.

“When I heard about this program I was really happy,” said Gwen Gillory, whose 11-year-old son Keyote played basketball. “There’s so much on the street for the boys to get involved in--the gangs, the drugs.”

Last year, the Southwest Division had 31 gang-related homicides, the third highest in the city. It ranked eighth in drug arrests with 3,581.

“We’re in a location where there’s a lot of heartache,” said Kattie Gaspard, principal of 52nd Street School. “The children see it all the time.”

In the police league the kids not only learn to play sports; they learn to play without fear.

“It’s fun because you have security around you instead of just regular coaches,” said Pierre Thomas, 10. “If they do a drive-by, you’d be protected because they kind of like know what to do.”

Sean agreed. “If somebody comes up here and tries to shoot, they got guns in the car and they can shoot back.”

Parents and residents say the parks where the police league plays are safer. Dorothy Bamgboye, director at Jim Giliam Park, where the league plays during basketball season, said the park was often used as a hangout by gang members who would congregate in the parking lot after 10 p.m. She said the gang presence diminished when the league played there.

“Just the sight of the police being here deters a lot of things that could happen,” she said.

But the league has even gained the tacit support of some current and former gang members, officers say.

“Older gang members want the young kids involved in this program,” Baptista said.

Gang members whose lives are dominated by violence have enrolled their nephews, cousins and younger brothers in the program in hopes of steering them away from their self-destructive life style, he said.

One former gang member who signed up his nephew for the league remembered Baptista from the streets, the officer said.

“He even told me, ‘You arrested me a few times, I want my nephew out of that scene.’ ”

Baptista said the man came by to help at baseball practice and bought chicken for the kids after practice once.

“I was proud of him,” Baptista said.

The Southwest Booster Club, an organization of 45 businesses, donated more than $5,000 to the police league because the members recognized a need to involve more kids in positive extracurricular activities, said Darryl Miller, president of the group. A parents committee was formed to get more parents involved and to raise money to supplement the club’s donation.

Even with that support, the four officers who run the program have their hands full. They pick up the 150 players from school, practice with them at the park and then return them to their schools.

But some of the boys who played baseball, basketball and now flag football with the league have developed a respect and admiration for the officers.

“At first they were a little hesitant,” Crockett said, “but after being around us three hours a day, two times a week, they got to learn our ways and we got to learn theirs.”

While getting the boys to come to practice was easy, Baptista said, teaching them discipline and good sportsmanship took much more effort on the part of the officers.

“At first they would curse at each other and fight,” Baptista said. “It was just like in the Army. If one guy on a team messed up, we punished the whole team. We did that for awhile, then they started catching on.”

Timothy and his friend, Charles Stephens, 12, remember those days.

“He reminds me of Pat Riley of the Lakers, he makes you work,” Charles said. “He tells us go out and do the best you can do.”

“He made us do sit-ups, and that’s when we learned,” Timothy said.

The difference in the kids’ behavior then and now is “like night and day,” Baptista said.

Judy Burton, principal of Martin Luther King Elementary School, also noticed a change in the behavior of students who participated in the program.

“They were so proud of the fact that they were very successful in the sports program,” Burton said. “It made them feel very special.”

Burton remembered one “special education” student whose attitude changed completely as a result of being in the program.

Frustrated because he was older than the other kids in his class, yet unable to do the work as well, the boy would pick fights. Burton said the boy stopped fighting and improved his work habits so dramatically that he wound up being the speaker at the sixth-grade graduation last June.

An added attraction for the kids is simply being around police officers, Crockett said.

“They love riding in the car, hearing the radio . . . but the bottom line is that they love sports,” he said.

The league has changed some parents as well.

“Many of the parents involved in the sports league were anti-police and there were subtle comments made in the stands,” said Payne. “But seeing their kids excited and seeing the officers’ concern, the parents accept us more. I think they see the humanistic part of the police.”

Sean’s parents, Ivadeen and Sean Franklin, said they were glad when they found out that the police were doing something positive for the kids.

“They’re always on our street busting the drug dealers. It’s good to see them involved in something constructive instead of something negative,” Sean’s mother said.

Because of the program’s success, Deputy Chief Rathburn said plans are under way to start a league in the 77th Division and Southeast Division.

In the Southwest Division, meanwhile, parents and police officers are looking for ways to attract girls, possibly with a bowling team, and to accommodate the dozens of boys who were turned away because of a shortage of coaches and funds.

“We could probably have a thousand kids if we just had people to help us,” Crockett said. “But you can’t do it with four people.”