Not Your Typical Police Station : Community: Using seized drug money, officers are creating a neighborhood center offering youths recreation, support groups and help finding jobs.

Freddy, a scrawny heroin addict, is giggling at police officers.

He is slouched comfortably against a smoked-glass room divider at the new El Monte Police substation, as if he were at home. A few weeks earlier, Freddy’s home was state prison, where he was serving time for robbery. (He won’t give specifics or his last name.)

What’s making Freddy laugh is the officers’ antics. Officer Marty Penney is lobbing scrunched-up paper wads at him. Officer Ken Weldon walks by, and without breaking stride, playfully fastballs a bag of potato chips into Freddy’s gut.

“The cops here are like kids,” said Freddy, 27, who dropped by the station to find help for his drug problem. “They’re fun to talk to. They’re never talkin’ nuthin’ about the law. It’s like, ‘If you go this way, it’s wrong. . . .’ These guys are different than cops on the street. Cops on the street are idiotic.”

But the very officers whom he praises are indeed cops on the street--with a twist.

In an apparently unique use of money seized from drug dealers, El Monte police opened a new substation that doubles as a sort of community center, offering young people jobs, homework help, weightlifting, support groups and two on-site counselors in private psychotherapy rooms. Officers will fix bikes, sign kids up for overnight camping trips or put them on a softball team. Volunteer tutors will help youngsters use the 15 donated computers, which are available for games or study programs.

For parents, there will be support groups, assorted classes and gang awareness seminars. Everyone is welcome, including non-residents, and the programs are free. The substation opened six weeks ago in Santa Fe Plaza, although some programs and activities will not get under way until September, when school starts. Some services are new, but the Police Department’s community relations unit has run the jobs program, counseling service and sports leagues since the mid-1970s.

The substation is a place where youths can wander in to feel welcomed by the six full-time police officers, most of whom wear jeans and have their feet up on the desks. Officers go on daily patrol by car, foot or mountain bike. But rather than respond to routine radio calls, they search for truant students, talk to gang members and visit families of young troublemakers.

The aim is to take community policing into a new realm of social service.

“Our role is to help anyone in need and provide them with a chance to make something in life,” said Weldon, substation supervisor and gang expert.

In a time of declining money for local governments, El Monte turned to a creative use of drug asset forfeitures to fund the new program. Under federal and state laws, local law enforcement agencies can claim a portion of the assets they seize and use the money for extras only, not routine expenses such as police cars or standard handguns.

Since 1989, Los Angeles County agencies have reaped more than $60 million in state forfeiture funds, according to the attorney general’s office. In El Monte, about $340,000 of the city’s $2-million forfeiture kitty will go to the substation over the next three years. After that, police plan to ask for city funding.

It’s a novel use of drug money, which police departments typically use for high-tech equipment such as infrared night-vision goggles, laser fingerprint readers and specially equipped helicopters.

“A lot of times the criticism leveled against forfeitures is that police want a new helicopter, so they go seize one or (seize the drug) assets to have one,” said Jeffrey J. Koch, supervising deputy attorney general in charge of the state asset forfeiture program. He called El Monte’s approach unique.

El Monte’s community relations officers came up with the substation idea after seeing an article about a similar substation in New Jersey. The officers figured that their programs, which are more extensive, could use their own home. Officers pitched the idea of using asset forfeiture funds to pay for the substation, and Police Chief Wayne C. Clayton gave the go-ahead.

The program started in 1975 with two community relations officers who worked out of a small City Hall office. The 3,300-square-foot substation is three times bigger and offers more services.

Previously, for instance, the community relations unit offered two part-time counselors; now, a full-time counselor, a part-time bilingual counselor and several counseling interns are available. Weldon selects the officers, based on their experience with at-risk youth and gang members. There also is a rotating spot, open to officers for a one-year stint. Besides working on crime prevention, officers have solved cases, from thefts and fights to murder, Weldon said.

Police and community leaders said the approach is working.

In the mid-1970s, El Monte had seven street gangs with a total membership of more than 1,500. These days, police said, there are two main gangs with about 100 members.

“This type of social services is something every city (police department) should do,” said Lillian Rey, executive director of the El Monte-South El Monte Emergency Resources Assn.”(Critics) might say they should be out there patrolling the streets, but this is a better way of patrolling. It’s going to stop a lot of what goes on in the streets.”

Weldon, who started the original office 18 years ago, is an El Monte native and knows as well as anyone what’s happening on the streets. He has watched a generation of gang members and wanna-be gang members. Some got killed; others who found work through the police jobs program have started their own businesses.

“The Police Department should be a place where people can go to and solve their problems,” Weldon said. “Because if they don’t solve their problems, what are they going to do? They’re going to go out and commit crimes.”

On a recent afternoon at the substation, Gilbert Valenzuela, a 17-year-old convicted tagger, was sorting out the Police Department’s color photographs of graffiti. Police pay him $4.25 an hour to sort photos by taggers’ names and help paint out graffiti.

The photos tell Valenzuela what’s going on with the homeboys, who’s kicking it with whom, who’s dissing whom. Zerek’s around, so is Phib and Ska--their tags are all over El Monte, on freeway overpasses, schoolyards, even white picket fences.

The same homeboys who can’t believe he works for police.

“I go out with my friends, and they’re like, ‘You kick back with cops?’ “said Valenzuela, in wide-eyed mimicry.

He even gave one of the officers a photograph of his year-old daughter, Jasmine.

“I want to be a cop too,” Valenzuela said. “Looking at them, it looks fun what they do.”

Community Profile: El Monte

The city Police Department joined with the Boys Club of San Gabriel Valley to create The El Monte Plan in 1975. The goal was to find jobs and activities for gang members and potential gang members. In the mid-1970s, there were seven gangs in the city and more than 1,500 gang members. Police say that only two gangs remain in the city, with fewer than 100 members.

Population 106,209

Size 10 square miles

Ethnicity Latino 76,740 Anglo 66,468 Black 898 American Indian 445 Asian 12,404 Other 25,994

(Total will add up to more than population because U.S. Census sometimes notes more than one ethnicity.)

Education Less than ninth grade 30% Ninth to 12th grade, no diploma 26% High school graduate 21% Some college, no degree 14% Associate degree or above 9%

Income Median household income $28,034

Housing Owners 40% Renters 60

1992 crime figures Murder 17 Rape 53 Robbery 710 Aggravated assault 744 Burglary 1,684 Theft 2,062 Auto theft 1,405 Arson 64

Sources: U.S. Census, El Monte Police Department