Lawmakers Are Law Enforcers for a Day : Police services: Municipal officials attend Sheriff’s Department training session to walk a mile in deputies’ shoes.

With their patrol car’s siren screaming and lights flashing, Albert Perez and his partner, Art Olmos, pulled over a sedan in what should have been a routine traffic stop.

But when the driver started mouthing off to Olmos, the situation turned nasty: Perez ordered all three occupants out of the car and instructed them to place their hands on the hood, while Olmos searched inside. Just when tensions began to cool, one passenger reached for his ankle, drew a small pistol and whirled on Perez. But the lightning-quick mayor of South El Monte fired first.

For Perez, the decision to shoot was all part of a role-playing scenario Saturday at a training session in which the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department showed area city council members the basics of carrying a badge.

“It gave me a perspective of the other side of things,” said Perez, taking a breather after the make-believe confrontation with the gunman in the car. “That was a tense moment. My heart was going 120 miles per hour.”

Deputies watched with bemused smiles as lawmakers with itchy trigger fingers maneuvered through other practices involving chasing burglars and breaking up domestic disputes.

The four-hour session, held at a law enforcement training facility east of Downtown, was the highlight of the Sheriff’s Department’s City Council Academy, a program designed for elected officials from the 40 communities that pay the department to police their streets.

In training exercises, lawmakers-turned-law enforcers confronted suspects and received coaching from the profession als. Even as deputies preached caution and common sense, some council members adopted the personas of hard-nosed movie cops.

“If you take your hands off that hood, we’re going to have a problem,” one warned as he held a suspect at gunpoint.

Others seemed a bit overwhelmed by the rigors of police work.

“We have to call for backup, don’t we? He’s big,” another council member wondered.

In one scenario, the trainees tried to intervene in a violent domestic argument. In another, they chased an apparent burglar through the back rooms of a bar, only to discover that the man actually owned the place. Two legislators ended up shooting him anyway. Elsewhere, in the department’s video game-like target practice room, the trainees faced car thieves and a rapist.

The course includes two classes during the week, a Saturday training session, a ride-along and tours of Sybil Brand Institute, the department’s communications center and other facilities.

“We’re training the elected officials to be more sensitive to the difficulties of doing our job,” said Capt. Mike Nagaoka, of the Industry sheriff’s station, who accompanied his city’s representative to the session.

Sheriff’s officials started offering the course after two cities, Hawaiian Gardens and Santa Fe Springs, dropped their contracts with the department and decided to fund their own police departments.

“The academy is basically an effort to improve communication,” said Sgt. Ed Rogner, who works in the sheriff’s contract law bureau. “We want to improve their confidence level in us and let them know that we have all these services.”

The majority of the 40 communities have five-year agreements with the department, but can adjust periodically the number of deputies or patrol cars they want in their areas. Yearly contracts range from $120,000 to about $10 million.

The department employs about 1,200 officers for its contract duties, and although county budget-paring would not threaten those jobs, losing contracts could. Having sheriff’s deputies deployed in cities and towns throughout the county also provides the agency with a tactical advantage in crisis situations: Decisions can come from one command office, not a hodgepodge of individual police departments, officials said.

To the council members, who carried laser-equipped Beretta 92F pistols Saturday, the course is one part education and one part advertisement.

“I feel this is PR because a lot of the cities were investigating the alternative of contracting with other police departments,” said Sally Holguin-Fallon, a recent addition to the La Puente City Council. “I’m very impressed. This is a very professional outfit.”

Sheriff’s officials underscore the importance of having two officers in every patrol car, advise city lawmakers how to handle citizen complaints about law enforcement and tout services available for free under most contracts, such as SWAT patrols. Training officers in several sheriff’s stations also run similar sessions for civilians interested in understanding law enforcement.

In some ways, the academy is an exercise in preaching to the choir, deputies acknowledged. Many of the communities sending city council members have held contracts with the department for decades. Still, the county’s budget crisis is drawing new attention to local finances, and city officials say the question of whether to hire the Sheriff’s Department or start a police department is really about money.

“I’m trying to gain insight into what I’m already paying for,” said Deborah A. Shelton, a council member from Lancaster. “If I have to cut dollars from law enforcement, I want to have a better idea of what’s actually fat.”