The LAPD’s Idea Man : Officer’s Latest Gadget Is Designed to Put the Squeeze on Crime

Policeman Robert Mika figures the best way to make a pinch is with a pinch.

Mika is a Los Angeles police officer who spends his spare time devising new gadgets to help cops put the squeeze on crooks. And that’s exactly what his latest invention does.

It is a tweezer-like device that officers can use to pluck demonstrating protesters out of doorways or to arrest belligerent suspects.

When squeezed against a finger or earlobe, the tiny pincers produce instant pain that can bring the strongest man to his knees without causing permanent injury, Mika claims.

Best of all, it does it with a subtleness that is missing when officers whack at suspects with night sticks or twist controversial, menacing-looking martial arts weapons around their wrists, he said.

“Image is important in police work,” said Mika, a 16-year police veteran who patrols the streets of Van Nuys when he is not tinkering in a workshop in a spare bedroom at his Woodland Hills home.

“You don’t want something that looks too militaristic or has high visibility. You don’t want something that gives the image of overkill.”

To fellow officers, Mika is the Los Angeles Police Department’s resident inventor. Hundreds of them use special gun holsters he has designed and stitched together. Others won’t go on duty without tucking one of his special mirrors into their shirt pocket.

Department officials are evaluating the “Mika Come Along”--the tweezer pincer that Mika sees as an alternative to clubs, electrical stun guns, chemical sprays and martial arts nunchakus sometimes used to subdue unruly suspects.

A nunchaku is made of two foot-long lengths of hard plastic that are connected by 4 inches of nylon cord. In contrast, Mika’s pencil-length tweezers can be discreetly held in the palm of the hand.

If judged to be safe and effective, the tweezers could eventually win a place on police officers’ belts alongside handcuffs and guns.

Use of weapons and “pain compliance” equipment is a touchy issue for law enforcement officials--particularly when television news footage shows police swinging batons or clamping neck holds on suspects.

Some officers have been criticized for manhandling demonstrators and causing injuries in recent anti-abortion protests at which nunchakus were used.

More than two dozen abortion protesters sued Los Angeles police last week, for example, claiming that they suffered broken arms and damaged nerves through officers’ use of the weapons at a June 10 demonstration. Police have denied using unnecessary force to remove the Operation Rescue demonstrators.

Mika, 37, came up with the pincer idea when he accidentally mashed his finger with a nutcracker last Thanksgiving while cracking walnuts.

“I slipped, and it hurt,” he said. “It got me to thinking that something that could be used in situations like those abortion protest demonstrations.”

Mika assembled several prototype pincers in December and took them to the Van Nuys police station.

At first, his fellow officers howled with laughter at his tiny aluminum tweezers. But the laughs quickly turned to cries of anguish when Mika grabbed their fingers to test his invention.

“He clamped that thing on my pinky and there was immediate pain,” said Officer Charles Valencia, one of Mika’s guinea pigs. “He tried it on a lot of guys with the same result.”

Now, Valencia joked, “I unholster my weapon when I see him coming down the hall. You wonder what he’s going to come up with next.”

Like many other Los Angeles police officers, Valencia carries his department-authorized backup gun in a “Mika Pocket Holster.” It is a moisture-proof, plastic-reinforced nylon and Naugahyde holder that prevents guns from snagging on trouser pockets when they are drawn.

Mika has stitched together more than 6,000 of the $9.50 holsters on a sewing machine at home and sold them by mail order.

About 3,000 officers have ordered the “Mika Pocket Mirror.” It is made of break-resistant plastic and has a fold-out handle that officers can use to peek around corners and peer into attics when looking for burglary suspects. Mika got the idea for it by watching his wife, Patricia, use a hand mirror as she combed her hair.

“I use it on every building search I go on,” said LAPD Officer Adam Greenburg, who also pulls out his mirror when hunting for contraband beneath automobile seats and dashboards. “I even carried it with me when I wore shorts on beach patrol at Venice.”

Other Mika innovations have been slower to catch on, however, such as his tennis balls.

Mika’s tennis balls have happy faces and frowning faces painted on them. The faces serve as ice-breakers when children are interviewed during investigations, he said.

But Mika also uses the tennis balls for knocking on doors where an armed suspect may be hiding. Standing out of the possible line of fire, Mika can “knock” by throwing balls in quick succession against the door.

That’s a dumb idea, according to at least one top-level Los Angeles police tactical training officer. He is Sgt. Frank Mika--the brother of Robert Mika.

“There’s always the problem with liability if you miss and throw one of those balls through a window,” said Frank Mika, 43. “I can just see having to schedule a four-hour training (period) on how to throw a tennis ball.”

There has been no stampede for the “Mika Robbery Alarm,” either.

The $350 device is a revolving light with red, white and blue lenses that is designed for installation outside banks, liquor stores and mini-marts.

The light alarm is connected to a hidden switch or to the store’s regular silent alarm. It starts flashing if the robbery alarm is triggered, Mika said, alerting passing patrolmen who have not yet received a robbery-in-progress call on their radio. It also can attract the attention of witnesses who can describe the robbers to police, he said.

Mika said the alarm idea came to him on the Ventura Freeway when he noticed that eastbound traffic had slowed as motorists gawked at flashing lights on emergency vehicles at an accident on the westbound side.

“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if people a mile away could know that a robbery was going on?’ I can see a use for these things all over L.A.,” he said.

Only one robbery light has been installed, however. And it has been placed on the roof of a restaurant in Detroit on the recommendation of a Dearborn Heights, Mich., policeman who bought one of Mika’s holsters and was pleased with it.

But the alarm light atop the Ram’s Horn restaurant has never been used to signal a robbery. In fact, when James Woolford purchased the Michigan restaurant three months ago, nobody bothered to even tell him what it was for.

“When we turned it on to see what it did, it looked like a blue-light special,” Woolford said. “I’m going to take it down when spring comes and I get up on the roof. . . . It’s ridiculous.”

Detroit police say no one has told them what the Ram’s Horn light is for, either.

“We get runs up there all the time on fights and everything. That light’s never been flashing that I know of,” said Gary Arnold, precinct desk officer. “Of course, we’d never look up when we’re going out on a fight call.”

Los Angeles police hope Mika’s inventions keep coming, however.

“We’re kind of in the Dark Ages. We’re using weapons first constructed in the 14th Century--clubs and handguns,” said Capt. Art Lopez, who is in charge of training LAPD officers.

“We need people with minds like that who are going to get us out into the future.”