Police Tap $15-a-Month Reserves : Law enforcement: In a money-strapped LAPD, part-time officers are getting more work.

For eight days in a row after rioting erupted last spring, Leonard Drayton worked 12-hour shifts on the night watch, patrolling the streets of Pacoima in a Los Angeles Police Department squad car.

On a night a few months before that, Drayton stumbled onto a shootout in a Northridge parking lot, pulled his gun and single-handedly disarmed and arrested two gang members who had just fired a shotgun into a crowd.

This month, Drayton will receive the Police Star from Chief Willie L. Williams, and the Foothill Division unit he is assigned to will receive a meritorious unit citation.

Not bad for a guy who repairs cars for a living. Drayton, 48, is a reserve police officer.

The awards to Drayton and his 36 fellow part-timers at Foothill Division are a rarity for a Police Department reserve unit and serve to underline a growing trend in the department: As the money-strapped department’s force of patrol officers dwindles and new officers remain scarce, the value of the reserve officers has increased dramatically.

The Police Department now has about 875 reserve officers--each paid $15 a month--and Williams has called for more as the fully trained part-timers are seen as a means of easing the burden of a department where a hiring freeze has thinned the ranks of officers on the streets.

A look at the Foothill Division program shows how reserves are used to bolster service to the public. Not the biggest among 18 police divisions in the city, the Foothill reserve program is often cited by department managers as an example of how well such a unit can work for the city.

“We are in a position where we need every officer we can get,” said Capt. Tim McBride, commander of the division. “The reserves come right in as regular police officers and fill the voids. In many instances they have saved us. We couldn’t do it without them.”

Last year, the division’s reserves worked 2,600 shifts at the station, handling assignments ranging from patrol duties to vice and narcotics operations to report writing and fingerprinting. While not always handling the priority jobs, the work that they do frees regular officers to remain on patrol.

One night last week, Drayton and his partner, Boyan Brkic, who is also a reserve, were working the night watch together in Pacoima. They spotted a wrecked pickup truck near a freeway off-ramp and arrested the driver, who was too drunk to walk. The booking and paperwork that followed took more than three hours. If Drayton and Brkic had not been there to do it, the job would have very likely taken the regular patrol team assigned to the area off the street.

“That’s how it works,” Drayton said. “We keep the other patrols out there a little longer.”

Increasingly, the reserves are no longer being used simply as extras in the field, said Lt. Leslie Lutz, who is in charge of the department reserve program. As the department continues to operate under freezes on hiring and overtime, the reserves have become a vital component in filling out basic patrols on almost every shift, he said.

“The reserves are very important to the department,” Lutz said. “As things are going, they are going to become even more important. You are talking about a substantial savings to the city when reserves are used.”

In Foothill and Newton divisions, the reserve units on occasion have even come on duty in a group and filled in for the entire night watch shift, Lutz said. Foothill reserves have fielded the entire anti-gang CRASH unit on occasion when the full-time officers have been in training, others said.

On the night rioting began in the city following the verdicts in the Rodney G. King case, Drayton was one of the officers in riot gear who lined up in front of the Foothill Station to defend it against an angry group of protesters.

During the two-week period beginning that night, Drayton and the other Foothill reserves logged 1,277 hours, according to Officer Ken Cioffi, the unit’s coordinator. They handled inside desk jobs and spelled regular officers who were working long hours themselves. Paying regular officers for that time would have cost an estimated $25,000, Cioffi said.

“We put out the call the first night,” Cioffi said. “As soon as we started the mobilization we called the reserves. They worked two and three times as many hours as normal. Their dedication was just incredible.”

Aside from the riot period, many Foothill reserves work as many as 12 shifts a month, though the department requires a minimum of two shifts and one evening training session.

Unable to receive overtime pay for most of the extra hours they work, full-time officers bank large amounts of compensatory time. An officer cannot, however, take a “comp day” without finding a replacement to work his or her shift.

That’s where the reserves come in. Regular officers routinely go to the reserves seeking volunteers to fill in on shifts.

After a recent roll call, Brkic was asked twice by passing officers if he could fill in for them. Drayton said he is routinely called at his auto-repair shop by officers seeking a replacement. Sometimes, officers even drop by his shop to ask.

And on the wall outside Cioffi’s office door is the “Officer’s Wish List”--a listing of officers’ requests for days off followed by a line for reserves to sign up to fill in. The wish list is always long.

With so many reserves working so many shifts, police said there is a clear integration between the full-timers and the volunteers.

“Historically, I think the reserves were seen as volunteer Boy Scouts,” said Sgt. Brad Young, a Foothill patrol supervisor with 17 years on the force. “But that’s not the case. These people have a lot of training and experience. They are treated as equals.”

As the value of reserves grows, so too is the competition to recruit them and keep them. Cioffi, who once was a reserve himself, is assigned full time to supervising the Foothill unit. He regularly sets up recruitment booths at open houses at the station, and at events such as local car and gun shows.

“We go the extra mile for the reserves,” Cioffi said. “We need them.”

McBride, the station commander, said with reserves costing only a few dollars to do a service worth thousands, it is common-sense good management to foster a qualified reserve unit.

“There is a certain amount of competition for them,” he said. “These are people that are already trained. They are valuable and experienced. We try to make them happy so that they want to stay at Foothill.”

Police Department reserve officers go through a nine-month, part-time academy that includes 620 hours of training. That is less than full-time officers, who receive 920 hours of training because of additional Spanish classes and physical workouts, but more than the 560 hours of training required by the state for a full-time peace officer. Reservists must meet much the same standards as regular officers.

After graduating from the academy, reserves can begin armed police patrols but are not allowed to carry a weapon while off duty until completing a one-year probation period. Reserve officers receive departmental performance evaluations twice a year. After working 2,000 hours of patrol service with full-time officers, a reserve officer is qualified to patrol with another reserve officer.

Foothill has 12 reserve officers with such qualifications, enabling the division to field several reserve-only patrols to augment routine patrol. Police administrators and reserves said volunteers, in general, become reserves for one or more of three popular reasons: public service, excitement and training for a career in law enforcement.

Reserves said a desire to serve the public was a major reason for giving up their time and even placing themselves in danger at times.

“I want to put something back into the community,” said Brkic, a 23-year-old sociology major at Pierce College. “My father was a reserve and I think it is a good way to contribute.”

But excitement weighs heavily in the reasoning of most reserves as well.

“It’s better than an E ticket at Disneyland,” said John Cresto, a 50-year-old computer analyst who has been a reserve for 23 years.

Cresto said he has worked so many hours during that period that he probably has the equivalent experience of a full-time officer with five years on the job. He has never considered joining the department full time because his reserve status allows him to have the excitement of the job without “putting up with the nonsense” in the department’s bureaucracy.

For several years, Cresto and his reserve partner, Carmen Silicato, have patrolled the Sunland-Tujunga area on Friday nights, establishing ties with community members and learning the problem spots of the beat like full-time officers. Cresto said that for the most part they handle “trash calls”--the minor problems--while allowing the full-time patrol car assigned to the area to remain free for the “hot shots”--the emergencies.

“We back up on the hot shots and sometimes we have to answer the hot shots,” he said. “I have a good time with it. It’s like an all-encompassing hobby.”

Drayton’s reasoning is similar. Sitting in his car-shop office, where on the walls hang his car repair credentials as well as police commendations and photos, Drayton said he was inspired to join the reserves eight years ago when he helped police in Hollywood by serving as a rooftop lookout on a drug surveillance.

“I thought I would like to get involved. . . . I come in here every day and it’s the same cars getting the same tuneups every day. The police work is exciting,” he said.

“I like patrol. I like the street. I like working with people and I like the anticipation of not knowing what each call will bring.”