LA PALMA : Volunteers SCORE High With Police

Their police radio identification code, appropriately, is 755.

The number the Police Department was supposed to assign them, the one next in sequence, was 716. But officials decided on the special 755 tag for the department’s new SCORE volunteers because all are 55 years old or over.

SCORE (Senior Citizens Organizing Reciprocal Efforts) members will donate time to helping police with everything from patrolling neighborhoods to filing reports.

“Yeah, we’ll be getting radio calls, ‘Car 755, where are you?’ ” joked 64-year-old Rosemary Scichilone, one of a dozen uniformed members in the new group who are set to be out in full force within a few weeks.

Taking a cue from other cities across the country, La Palma initiated its volunteer program in January in an effort to cope with increased service demands and decreasing revenue, police officials say. The volunteers allow police officers to devote more time to preventing and solving serious crimes, officials say.

“The seniors have a wealth of information and talent,” Police Chief David Barr said. “And the reaction so far has been extremely favorable.”

SCORE volunteers attend a “mini-academy” where they are taught the basics of police work and the court system. Many of the volunteers, who are retirees, will go on ride-alongs with officers to get a feel for law enforcement.

The program’s training prepares the seniors to patrol neighborhoods (in their own specially marked squad car), walk a beat in shopping centers, and cite violators of handicapped-parking regulations. Police also instruct the senior volunteers on how to recognize suspicious people or conditions during their patrols.

However, armed only with radios, the volunteers will make no arrests.

“They’re told to be good witnesses only,” said Barr. “And not to take enforcement action of any kind.”

Other important duties for volunteers will be making home and business security checks, presenting neighborhood watch programs and cataloguing incidents of graffiti.

Said 78-year-old Glenn Reeves, volunteer coordinator for SCORE, “We are the eyes and ears of the Police Department.”

Not all the volunteers, however, will be pounding the beat. Some prefer to help officers sort through the mountains of paperwork that accompanies police work.

“I don’t want to be involved in any violence or anything like that,” said Hope Olivares, a retired executive secretary, who would say, with a wink, only that she is over 60.

Police expect to have 18 SCORE volunteers working by this summer. Volunteers must be able to work at least four hours a week.

“We are getting a lot of good reaction,” said Reeves. “We make it a point to be amicable.”