Police Reserve Officer Gale Beck Got His Start in Handcuffs

Gale Beck, a reserve Los Angeles police officer who books drunk-driving suspects, got into police work the hard way--by getting arrested. Beck first showed up at his workplace as a drunk driver himself, in handcuffs.

Beck’s unusual debut in the law enforcement field is no problem in his unit, the Immediate Booking and Release System, which processes those rounded up in periodic drunk-driver sweeps.

“I’m very proud of my work and I’m also proud of my background,” said Beck, 64, a man whose bright blue eyes convey his current zeal but whose worn face betrays his decades of heavy drinking.

When people criticize the Police Department for being out of touch with the community, they’re not talking about this program. IBARS is the community, staffed mostly by volunteers, reserve officers, part-timers or “penance people”--drunk drivers sentenced to help IBARS as a community service.

Walking around the lot that IBARS used last weekend in Canoga Park, the program’s head, Sgt. Mike Pattee, was more like Fred MacMurray in the TV series “My Three Sons” than a boss.

But IBARS is serious work, especially for the more than a thousand inebriated drivers it has processed since 1986.

IBARS is a mobile unit consisting of two customized RTD buses (circa 1966), a few benches, several Breathalyzers and a couple of computers mixed in with a great deal of sweat and pride. The unit operates only on weekends, its location changing each week, and usually comes to the San Fernando Valley once a month.

Two words describe the program’s strong points: cheap and effective. IBARS is the only LAPD unit that actually turns a profit, Pattee said.

Its labor costs are low because it uses many reserve officers, paid only $15 a month, to fill out paperwork, freeing full-time officers to return quickly to the street.

Usually, officers take two hours to process an arrest, but IBARS can cut the time to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, friends or relatives are called to pick up the swiftly booked suspects, preventing the sweeps from clogging the already overcrowded jails and releasing officers to write more citations per shift.

Beck was one of those citations when he was arrested in October, 1987. He was so drunk he didn’t realize he was driving on a flat tire, he said. Still on probation for an earlier drunk-driving conviction, he expected a prison term.

Instead, he was sentenced to serve a total of 170 hours of community service in IBARS, which gradually changed his life.

Beck tells his story with the excitement of a schoolboy describing his first hot date: He goes over every fact again and again, relishing it each time.

A thin man with gray curly hair slicked across his head, he leans forward and gestures emphatically as police and volunteers bustle noisily around him where IBARS has set up shop near Canoga Avenue and Saticoy Street. Near him, suspects sit handcuffed to portable benches, uncomfortable guests.

Most sit sullenly, eyes downcast.

A few squirm and press their case, hoping that if only given a sympathetic ear, they can talk their way free.

Le, a tall wire-thin Vietnamese man, gave off a powerful odor of alcohol while loudly proclaiming his innocence.

“I drink a little bit, but I never do anything wrong. I didn’t crash into anyone. I’m not a bad person,” he announced between burps.

“Drunk drivers are bad--they should arrest them and not me.”

On another bench, an attractive twentysomething blonde in a black leather miniskirt yelled at her parents and friends standing just outside the roped-off area, moaning over how her insurance company would react.

She balked at taking the breath test. “I guess she wants to go to jail,” an officer bellowed at her stunned mother, 50 feet away.

After a few minutes, the blonde relented. “I can’t afford to go to jail--not the way I’m dressed,” she shouted to friends. Besides, she added, giggling and noting the glances of several men around her, “I’ve already gotten enough attention for the evening.”

Whether the accent was Vietnamese or Valley Girl, the message from most of those in handcuffs was the same: “Why me? Why not someone else?”

Beck shrugged off the interruptions and dived back into his story. Upon beginning his community service sentence, he learned to help with the maze of paperwork involved in each arrest. He became indispensable while also avoiding the manual labor, such as cleaning latrines, usually saved for such unwilling helpers.

While he served his sentence, his wife died after a long battle with cancer in January, 1988. Beck, a semi-retired painter, grew lonely and depressed. “I got to looking forward to IBARS. I like the people and it was the most interesting part of my life,” he said.

They liked him too. On the last night of his sentence, Pattee and the other staffers urged him to stay on as a volunteer.

“ ‘We need people like you,’ they told me,” Beck said.

After more than a year as a volunteer, Pattee asked Beck if he wanted to become a reserve officer. “I laughed and told him I was too old for the police academy,” said Beck, laughing. “But he arranged for me to become an officer--imagine that--a former drunk driver booked at IBARS is booking drunk drivers for IBARS.”

Beck hasn’t gone unnoticed: Last month, he was named top reserve officer for all special units.

“The way I look at it, the LAPD did more than just save my life, they gave me a new one,” he said, his voice cracking just a hair.