THE FIGHT AGAINST CRIME: NOTES FROM THE FRONT : Fighting Crime the Explorer Scout Way

During the holidays, about 100 law enforcement Explorer Scouts fan out to shopping malls across the San Fernando Valley to help protect life, property and the peace and tranquillity of thousands of shoppers.

Helping fight crime during the holidays is a big part--but not the only part--played by the Police Explorers, teen-agers who often aspire to careers in police work. They are affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, which added the law enforcement specialty to its Explorer program for older Scouts in 1962. But their uniformed presence at many special events links them in many people’s minds with the Los Angeles Police Department, with which they work.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the cadets, who are between 14 and 20 years of age, are the “eyes and ears” of the Police Department inside and outside the malls, because they patrol the parking lots too.

Amid all the duties they are asked to perform, they are still in touch with their Boy Scout roots, sometimes helping pedestrians through the maze of cars at the malls.

During his four years as a law enforcement Explorer Scout, Patrick Gilbert, an 18-year-old senior at Birmingham High School, says he has grown to enjoy the challenges of the job and his role as a leader. Gilbert holds the rank of captain in the Explorers.

“I have two uncles who are LAPD officers and they influenced me to look into law enforcement as a career,” Gilbert said. “When I first came in the program, I didn’t think I’d ever want to be a sergeant. Now I like the leadership role, and I’m comfortable with it.”

Gilbert said he has grown accustomed to the jabs he takes from other high school kids who recognize him on duty and say things like “Hey, are you a narc?”

Neither narc nor nerd, Gilbert said, just a guy who wants to go to college, get into the Police Academy and join the department.

He gets the impression that regular officers appreciate the Scouts’ work, Gilbert said. “They think it’s cool that there are kids with their heads straight (who) want to do good things.”

Law Enforcement Explorer Scout candidates must complete 136 hours of training at the Police Academy and they also participate in leadership conferences and are offered the chance to spend a week in police training at Camp Pendleton each summer, said Sgt. Walt Kainz, one of three Explorer program coordinators at the West Valley station.

Under the department’s rules, Explorers are not supposed to confront suspected criminals, but instead summon patrol officers by radio for assistance. “Whenever they’re out there, there is never a black-and-white too far away,” according to Officer Nina Serna, who runs the Explorer program at the Devonshire division.

But as is common in police work, sometimes there just isn’t time to do anything but react.

Last year at Northridge Fashion Center, explorers successfully arrested and detained a man armed with a pistol who had come to the mall and become involved in a quarrel with his girlfriend, an employee of one of the stores, Serna said.

During the month the Explorers were stationed at the Northridge mall, no crimes were reported there except for one purse snatching, Serna said. When the Explorers are not on the job there are about 12 vehicles stolen each month from the mall, she said.

“I think the professionalism and the uniforms the kids wear makes a difference, and the public just loves it,” Serna said.

In exchange for the free holiday guard work, the malls make donations to the Explorer posts to fund summer trips for their members.

Explorer patrols attached to the West Valley division, for instance, get the proceeds from the fountain at the Topanga Plaza where shoppers throw coins for good luck, Kainz said.

In the past, Explorer Posts have used the money to take trips to Washington, D.C., and Florida, where explorers from the Devonshire division toured the state’s amusement parks last summer, Serna said. This year, the group hopes to go to to the nation’s capital.