Adopt-a-Cop Program in Torrance Schools Pairs Officers With Classes : About 60 department members volunteer their off-duty time to help children get to know police.

Amid the construction-paper pumpkins and alphabet posters that cover the walls of Mrs. Alicia Egan’s classroom, a group of fresh-faced first-graders are getting comfortable with the law.

“ Me llamo Jeff y soy de tu amigo, “ says Torrance Police Officer Jeff Haire to the Spanish-speaking class.

After introducing himself as their friend, Haire invites the students in this Torrance Elementary School class to shake his hand and tell him their names. They huddle around him and begin pulling on his legs, poking his arms and climbing his limbs as if he were a jungle gym. They grab at the baton hanging from the holster of his blue uniform, ask what handcuffs are used for, and the ones who watch too much television ask whether he’s wearing a bulletproof vest.

“They’re really curious about all the tools,” Haire, 33, said, “but I’m here to show the more human side of the profession.”

Like many Torrance officers, Haire spends time on his off-duty days volunteering in the classroom. He is one of about 60 officers participating in the locally invented Adopt-a-Cop program, which is in its second year of pairing up officers with grade-school classes.

The officers drop in for about an hour each week to play with the kids at recess, help out with arts and crafts projects, and talk about safety. The program aims to make children comfortable with the police through a fun and informal setting.

The Adopt-a-Cop program was recognized last month with the 1995 Crime Prevention Program of the Year Award by the state attorney general’s office. The program has attracted attention from police departments as far away as Chicago that are interested in duplicating the program.

The vision for the program came from Torrance Elementary School Principal Ada Garza and former PTA President Eve Shatkin. The administrators wanted to bring positive police images to the campus and pitched the idea to Community Lead Officer Don Sherwood. Garza said she hoped to have one officer per grade level, but was ecstatic when Sherwood recruited one officer for each of the school’s 19 classrooms.

“The program helps the kids see the cops as peace officers, as friends,” Garza said. This year, other Torrance campuses hopped on the bandwagon. The department now has programs in three other elementary schools, 60 classes in all, and hopes to expand even further by next school year. To meet those needs, a few officers have taken on an additional class each and divide their time between Torrance and Carr elementary schools.

Egan said the bond that the officers form with the students has helped even the parents feel more comfortable with police. She said she referred a parent to Haire last year when the mother became concerned that her teen-age son might join a gang.

For the most part, however, the officers are there to bring a lighthearted lesson to the classroom. Last year, Sherwood introduced a teddy bear named Tory to his classroom, and later took it on vacation with him to Russia and England, where he collected autographs addressed to the bear.

When he returned, he gave the bear to the class, and the teacher conducted a geography lesson that detailed the spots that Tory, short for Torrance, had visited.