Grounding Youth Patrol? : Lawndale: Supporters say the program keeps kids out of trouble and in school. But City Manager Tom Devereux is recommending that the council cut the program, arguing it is ‘a luxury that the city cannot afford.’

The Lawndale boy begged the deputy not to take him home.

“Please man, my Mom won’t let me out no more--she’ll make me stay at home,” the 16-year-old said.

Caught trespassing at Leuzinger High School by Brian Hill, a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the youth was afraid to face the consequences--his parents. But Hill remained unfazed. He hears such appeals every day.

Hill, 31, drives Lawndale’s Youth Services Car, a patrol vehicle that responds to youth-related police calls ranging from physical abuse of young children to robberies by teen-agers. He also scouts neighborhoods for truants.

“I’m a deterrent,” said the six-foot officer, who

has done youth service duty since October, 1991. “I’m so visible . . . I’m out on a regular basis.”

Indeed, police, school administrators and city officials consider the youth services car highly effective. But at its meeting tonight, the Lawndale City Council might vote to eliminate the $100,000 program to help ease city budget pressures.

“Given the current budget situation, the youth car is a luxury that the city cannot afford,” acting City Manager Tom Devereux said. “It has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of the program. It’s just a choice between bad alternatives.”

Devereux is recommending that the council ax the youth car, but his proposal is expected to stir debate. Councilwoman Nancy Marthens, a longtime proponent of the service, said she will vote to keep the program intact.

“I don’t feel positively about eliminating the program at all,” Marthens said. “The program is too effective and the cost of losing it is too high.”

Though statistics are hard to come by, youth car advocates say the program is effective in keeping kids out of trouble and reducing high school dropout rates. Said Marthens: “If the kids are truant for too many days, they fall behind and drop out.”

Hill is one of three deputies assigned to drive the youth car on a rotating basis. He says that while patrolling for truants, he regularly returns between 10 to 15 youths a day to their respective South Bay high schools during the school year.

The longest such trip, he said, involved driving a boy from Lawndale to Dorsey High School in Los Angeles.

During the school year, Hill looks for truants from 9 a.m until about noon. He says he stops any child on the streets who appears to be of school age. If the youths offer a valid reason to be out of school, he usually takes them to one of their parents--at home or at work.

In the summer, while most kids are on vacation, the youth service car responds mainly to burglary, trespassing and graffiti cases involving children. Hill says he often gets calls from apartment dwellers who complain about kids making noise in nearby alleys.

“If this program doesn’t do anything else, it takes kids off the street where they can either hurt or be hurt,” said Bertrum Best, security chief for Leuzinger High.

On patrol this week, Hill handcuffed the alleged 16-year-old trespasser and returned him to his Inglewood Avenue home. The boy’s father answered the door, and Hill told him where his son had been found that morning.

The father, speaking to his son sternly in Spanish, did not appear pleased.

Hill returned to Leuzinger to check out rumors that a gang fight would break out after the day’s summer classes. “I just want to make my presence known,” he said as he and two school security guards scanned the campus.

Assured that all was quiet on the school grounds, Hill returned to the patrol car and received a call about an 18-year-old who had allegedly broken into a boys group home on the 4700 block of 160th Street in Lawndale.

When Hill arrived, Raymond “Sadboy” Marrujo, a former resident of the home, was holding a blood-stained ice pack to a thickly swollen lower lip. Upon the deputy’s arrival, he tearfully begged Hill not to take him to jail.

“Calm down man. You got to calm down,” Hill told Marrujo as he proceeded to question him about the alleged burglary.

After gathering statements from the group home residents and counselors, Hill took Marrujo to Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne for treatment--four stitches--and then to the Lennox Station jail for booking on a burglary charge.

Settling down to fill out a report on the incident, he said: “A typical day.”