RTD Officer’s Obsession With Fitness Means Trouble for the Bad Guys

Flabby criminals just can’t beat Richard Estrada. Even athletically inclined crooks have a hard time getting away from him.

As a foot patrol officer for the Southern California Rapid Transit District police, Estrada has never lost a pursuit, he said. He has outrun and arrested every purse snatcher, robber and pickpocket he has seen preying on law-abiding people waiting for a bus.

Estrada, a longtime Pico Rivera resident, is considered one of the state’s toughest cops. He earned the designation by competing in the biennial statewide Toughest Cop Alive competition this year, where he placed second. More impressive, though, are his wins in the annual California law enforcement summer games, a sort of Olympics for police officers.

In the August games, Estrada received medals in 48 of the 50 events he entered, and 33 of them were gold. He specializes in swimming and running, but also competes in the triathlon, which combines a one-mile swim with a 25-mile bike ride and a 6.5-mile run.

Since Estrada, 27, began competing seriously three years ago, he trains six hours a day, as many as he sleeps.

Nothing in his background explains his obsession with sports, he said. “I think I’m just demented,” he said.

Estrada grew up in Pico Rivera across the street from the coach of a Downey swim club. His parents thought that swimming would keep him busy and out of trouble, Estrada said, so they enrolled him in their neighbor’s program.

“I was 9 and could barely swim,” Estrada said. The coach and Estrada’s mother “put me in the water and I barely made one lap, but they shouted and said I was great, I was a natural. They were pumping me up like I was the next Mark Spitz. I felt great. And I was hooked.”

While growing up, Estrada was frequently approached by gang members. “I thought gangs were pretty stupid. I never liked the way they dressed,” he said. “They’d ask me where I was going, and I was always on my way to practice or school or trying to get my homework done before practice. They thought I was a dork, so they left me alone.”

He competed in water polo and swimming through high school and community college. He only started running seriously four years ago, he said, about the time he started working in law enforcement.

“It behooves every officer to be in the best shape possible,” Estrada said. “When you catch someone, you don’t want to be so winded that you can’t arrest them.”

That’s why the summer games are so important, Estrada said. When he first began competing, he was the underdog, representing a tiny agency with 300 officers against such huge forces as the Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose police and sheriff’s departments.

The more events Estrada won, the more interested his competitors became in the RTD Police. “They were like, ‘Who is this RTD guy?’ ” Estrada said. “I enjoy the competition. I like to win. I don’t like to lose.” He carries that attitude with him into police work.

“I like to catch bad guys, that’s the bottom line. It just turns my stomach that people can violate someone’s rights and get away with it,” Estrada said.

Helping kids is particularly important to Estrada. As a beat officer, he carried baseball cards with him and distributed them to neighborhood children. “Most of them have a pretty negative view of (the police),” he said. “I want them to see another view.”

Once, when he and his partner were riding a bus on Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, they heard gunfire, looked out the window and saw a couple of “gangbangers pointing a gun at a school bus,” Estrada said.

As soon as the suspects saw the cops, “they started laughing and running. My stomach was turning,” Estrada said. He and his partner got the driver to stop the bus. They dove out the door and chased the pair over fences, through streets, down alleys.

“We eventually caught them both and arrested them without incident,” Estrada said. “I’d never let them get away. Because people like that don’t deserve to be free.”

The La Mirada Chamber of Commerce elected new members to its 1992-93 board of directors, including C. David Peters, George Harrison, Alan Nakamura, Rebecca Parrish and Stephen Smith.

Southern California Edison recently presented $500 scholarships to four outstanding 1992 graduates of Long Beach high schools. Winners include: Nhol Malinni Rouen of Jordan High School; Vuthy Nin of Polytechnic; Jason Cochran of Wilson, and Stanley Mejia of Millikan.

Constance Glenn will chair the ART/LA 92 advisory board, a group formed to help organize the annual International Los Angeles Art Fair scheduled to be held Dec. 2 to 6. Glenn is director of the Cal State Long Beach art museum.