OXNARD : ‘Adopt A Cop’ Program Breaks Down Barriers on Campuses

In the past, when police officers showed up on the campus of Oxnard’s Haydock Intermediate School, it meant one of two things: a student was a crime suspect, or a student was a crime victim.

Either way, something bad had happened.

To counter those negative dealings, Oxnard police have launched a program intended to improve their profile on middle-school campuses and make officers more accessible to students.

Dubbed “Adopt A Cop,” the 6-month-old program is run by five officers who visit five of Oxnard’s middle schools several times a week to mingle with students in the hallways and answer their questions in the classrooms.

“At first, a lot of them didn’t want to approach me,” said Officer Ken Klopman, who drops by Haydock twice a week when he gets a break from his regular patrol duties. “They thought we were there to bust somebody.”

Now, students applaud when Klopman is introduced.

“A chance to listen to me means they don’t have to listen to their teacher,” said the officer.

Besides affecting students’ attitudes about police, Klopman said he is now less quick to see teen-agers as troublemakers.

“When you’re working in a patrol car, sometimes it’s easy to group the kids together and generalize,” he said.

Other officers who visit the schools are Ed Castruita, Scott Swenson, Mike Adair and Randy Gens, who started the program. The other schools that have “adopted” officers are Fremont Intermediate School, Ocean View Junior High, E.O. Green Junior High and Charles Blackstock Junior High.

“Adopt A Cop” has no budget and no overtime is used. Officers visit the schools during their regular patrol shifts or, if they work the graveyard shift, are given compensatory time off.

By design, the program is informal. Unlike the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program in place in some other districts, officers do not come to class armed with a lesson plan. Instead, they offer short introductions and open the floor to the students.

Many of their questions have a common theme. Guns, for example, are guaranteed to come up.

“Did you ever shoot anybody?” “Do cops always wear bulletproof vests?” and “Do all you guys carry the same size gun?” were all asked during an eighth-grade science class at Haydock last week.

“A lot of these kids are under the impression we’re like T.J. Hooker, shooting several people a day,” Klopman said.

After the class, Don Fowler, 14, gave the program high marks. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said, “because the kids get to learn a lot about the cop.”