COSTA MESA : Airport Beat Has a Small-Town Rhythm

Tawyna Stammerjohan watches people pass through the security checkpoints, inspects emergency doors and converses with fliers as she makes her rounds through John Wayne Airport.

For Stammerjohan, an Orange County Sheriff’s special officer, and the 47 other deputies stationed here, working at the airport is much like being a cop in a small town.

Airline agents, ticket takers, baggage handlers, restaurant workers and other airport employees are like John Wayne’s residents, Stammerjohan said.

“I don’t see much difference being in here than out there,” she said, pointing outside the 697,000-square-foot airport terminal. “This is our own little city.”

With a handgun, radio and baton clipped to her belt, Stammerjohan, 23, is prepared to handle just about any kind of trouble. But mostly she talks with travelers and dispenses crime-prevention advice.

Special Officer Greg Beaman, 28, who has been assigned to the airport beat for nearly two years, described working at John Wayne as an “easygoing detail.”

“We make more contact with individuals and help them out with directions. It’s like a public relations job,” he said.

Despite its homey, small-town atmosphere, however, crime has been rising at the airport. From January through November, 1992, deputies responded to nearly 14,000 incidents--almost 5,000 more than for the same period in 1991. During those 11 months, they arrested more than 70 people and wrote more than 5,790 citations, mainly for parking violations, according to Lt. Ken Lohrey, who heads the Sheriff’s Airport Bureau.

Lohrey, 55, attributes the rise in incidents to the increase in the number of travelers who use the airport. About 400,000 people pass through the airport each month, he said.

Occasionally, someone will try to smuggle a knife, firearm or tear gas canister aboard a plane in carry-on baggage, said Lohrey, who has headed the airport substation for four years. But, by far, the biggest airport problem is illegal parking, he said.

In front of the airport terminal is half a mile of curb that is supposed to be used for loading and unloading only. Too many people, however, use it for parking as they wait for passengers to arrive, Lohrey said.

“This is the biggest frustration,” Lohrey said.