The Toughest Cop Alive: He’s Hard to Beat as Role Model

Officer Art Tom remembers how he once leaped to a fire escape ladder about seven feet above him and climbed to the roof, then crawled, ran and jumped--with 30 pounds of police gear--to catch a suspect in the Rampart Division.

When he worked Blythe Street in Van Nuys, he and his partner would surprise gang members by sneaking up on them in ways--such as climbing over rows of eight-foot barbed-wire fences--that the suspects never thought were possible.

At 5-feet-8 and 150 pounds, Tom is one of the toughest cops alive. Literally.

He’s the state and national champion in the Toughest Cop Alive competitions for law enforcement officers. On the international level, only one competitor has outscored him--a 6-foot-1, 180-pound Swedish chief inspector.

“I was brought up with the idea that no matter what you do . . . you do the best you can,” Tom said.

That includes the Toughest Cop Alive Competition. Scoring 6,500 out of 8,000 points last summer in the international competition in Colorado Springs, Colo., Tom was the only American to place.

In the two-day event, competitors run three miles, shotput, sprint 100 yards, climb a 20-foot rope using just their arms, lift weights, do pullups and complete an obstacle course. The event is part of the International Law Enforcement Games, an Olympic-like competition for law enforcement personnel that draws about 3,500 entries from 17 countries.

Despite his success in the grueling competition, Tom hardly comes across as a budding Arnold Schwarzenegger. His wry, unimposing manner belies the energy that carried him through the competition’s events in record times. But his colleagues say his toughness can’t be hidden.

“He has so much energy. He’s like a Tasmanian devil,” said Sgt. Randal Quan, who works with Tom at the Los Angeles Police Academy’s firearms training unit. Quan’s children met and played basketball with Tom at a picnic. After that, Quan said, when they would shoot hoops at home, they would yell: “I’m Art! I’m Art Tom!”

Tom’s fitness training is as much a vocational necessity as it is a personal pursuit. “If you’re not capable of defending yourself, you can’t defend anyone else and serve the public,” he said. “If I look out of shape, the (people on the street) wouldn’t respect me. A lot of these guys are just out of prison, where they’ve been training to disarm or kill officers.”

In one incident, Tom and his partner, while on the Blythe Street beat, ran across a suspected gang member in a parking lot. The man admitted that he had been planning to run or fight--until he saw their physiques. “He told us . . . we looked like we took care of ourselves,” Tom said.

Tom grew up in an upper-class New Jersey suburb, where his Asian, lower-middle-class family “had to work a little harder” to prosper. Tom served as an infantry captain in the Marines, worked as an ambulance medic in New Jersey and then moved to Los Angeles, where he graduated from the Police Academy at the top of his class.

Quan sees Tom as an especially inspiring role model.

“We use him to point out to others who are thinking about a career in the LAPD,” Quan said. “Every time he competes . . . he represents our department and enhances the image of the LAPD.”

For Tom, physical competition is more than part of the job. He trains off-duty and pays his own traveling expenses to athletic events. “I want to compete . . . until I can barely jump in the pool and somebody has to throw a raft to me,” he said, half-seriously.

As Tom passed through the halls of the Police Academy and pointed to a photo display of competitors sprinting, jumping and diving, several police officers passed by. One of them pointed at Tom.

“Now there,” the officer said, “ there is the toughest cop alive.”