Sheriff Doubles Nighttime Chopper Patrols : Crime: Two three-hour shifts weekly will be added. ‘Helicopters make pursuit more efficient and easier,’ the aviation unit chief says.

Beginning today, a sheriff’s helicopter will slice through the nighttime skies above Ventura County on routine patrol twice as often as before.

Although the sheriff’s aviation unit is always on call for emergencies, the unit will now float its big eye in the sky--with its heat-sensing scanner and scorching 12-million candlepower searchlight--in three-hour shifts, four nights a week.

“Helicopters make pursuit more efficient and easier,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Richard Purnell, who oversees the aviation unit. “When a suspect sees a helicopter overhead with its searchlight on, he realizes there’s no point in running away.” Although most people associate searchlight-laden helicopters with Los Angeles, law enforcement officials insist the noisy and intrusive machines are becoming a fact of life nearly everywhere.

“It’s unfortunate, but helicopters are a necessary part of modern law enforcement,” said Los Angeles Police Department pilot Chuck Perriguey, president of the Airborne Law Enforcement Assn. “If you don’t use them, you’ll have more crime and criminals on the street. What’s worse?”

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department can expect several calls from angry residents about the noise, Perriguey warned.

“People are going to complain, especially in the beginning,” he said. “That’s one of the costs of doing business.”

But after a year of three-hour patrols on Friday and Saturday nights, the sheriff’s aviation unit has received only a handful of informal complaints.

“Most people call us out of curiosity,” said Lt. Dave Tennessen, adding that the unit strives to be as unobtrusive as possible--except to criminals.

Although the aviation unit has been around for nearly 25 years, the weekly patrols didn’t begin until a year ago when the Sheriff’s Department purchased a McDonnell-Douglas 530 helicopter that is smaller and quieter than the unit’s other three aircraft: giant Hueys, which can also be used for search and rescue operations and firefighting.

“You certainly wouldn’t want a Huey hovering over your house,” Purnell said.

Sheriff’s pilots fly the little guy at a distant 1,000 feet high whenever possible and use the scorching searchlight only on emergency calls.

But the fact is, noisy or not, the Sheriff’s Department isn’t about to let its prized crime fighter sit on the Tarmac.

The aviation unit is quick to list its helicopter success stories.

Such as the time a motorcyclist, zipping through Thousand Oaks at 115 m.p.h., out-ran several safety-conscious police cruisers. He never knew what hit him when the patrol cars, using information from the helicopter, found him minutes later.

Or the time a speeding motorist abandoned his car, jumped over a barbed wire fence and ran through a field of mud in Camarillo. Deputies were a good hundred yards behind him until the helicopter shone its light on him. He just stopped running and put his hands up.

“You can’t outrun a helicopter,” Purnell said. “And you can’t hide from one either. The heat sensor sees right through brush, trees, anything.”

And the patrolling whirlybird is fast. It careens through the traffic-free skies at about 150 m.p.h.

“We can assist deputies in Thousand Oaks, then Fillmore, then Ojai, and be back in the hangar in 45 minutes,” Purnell said.

The unit’s $1.8-million budget won’t be affected by the increased flight time, Tennessen said.

The extra $200 an hour for the additional six hours of patrol will come from minor cuts elsewhere.

Instead of adding additional staff, schedules will be shifted for the existing four deputies, four pilots and three mechanics already working at the unit’s Camarillo Airport hangar.