Senior Officer : 54-Year-Old Graduates Sheriff’s Academy Near the Top of His Class

As Class 292 formed up for the last time at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy on Friday, the ranks included one rookie deputy with a few more lines in his face than his firm-jawed classmates.

And if it weren’t concealed by his shaved head, a receding hairline would have contrasted with the full crops of hair on the twentysomethings around him. But it is just that touch of mature mileage that gave Michael Walter of Valencia his proud distinction at the graduation--at 54, he is the oldest graduate in the academy’s history.

His stint in the sheriff’s academy--where he finished near the top of his class of 100--completes an evolution from social worker to federal parole officer to cop. Those previous careers didn’t bring him close enough to the streets, although his family saw them as safer pursuits, said Walter, a widower--now engaged to be married--who has a 32-year-old son.

“It was time to do something for myself,” he said with the verve of the college sophomore who drops out to join a garage band.

“I spent most of my life regretting not making this decision earlier.”

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As a social worker from 1964-69, he said, he helped people cope with the kind of problems that often lead to crime. As a county and federal parole officer from 1970 until his retirement this January, he kept tabs on released criminals.

But still he hungered for the day to day challenges he heard about from the cops he mixed with as a parole officer.

“I used to live vicariously through them, and I decided that if I could do it physically I was really suited” to the Sheriff’s Department, he said. “I retired on a Friday and [signed up for the academy] on Monday.”

A trim and avid runner, Walter often outlasted the younger men who needled him about his age during the first days of the grueling, 23-week training. He not only excelled on the track but in the classroom as well, his fellow recruits said.

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“When it comes to distance running, I think he can blow everyone in the class away,” said Paul Shay, 21, the youngest graduate. And during academic sessions, “we needed to check a dictionary at times to understand his answers.”

The physical exercises included 45 push-ups and 75 sit-ups that had to be performed in two minutes each, wind sprints followed by push-ups before recruits could catch their breath and the most dreaded calorie burner of all: an eight-count maneuver called mountain climbers.

But Walter had been working out three hours every other day for years. His routine included a six-mile run, various sprints and weight training.

“When I heard they only did two hours a day of physical training at the academy, I figured I could hack it,” he said. “My son thinks I’m crazy . . . but he knows how competitive I am. When he ran cross-country during high school, I used to race him.”

Walter said he logged 10 years experience with the county before leaving for his federal job. With that decade of service, he could have retired with a pension but did not meet the minimum age of 50.

Now that he meets that requirement, he can retire with a county pension immediately after getting his badge, he said.

But after enduring the academy, he vows he won’t.

“I don’t plan on stopping now. I’m going to do it as long as it feels good,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Department had an upper age limit of 35 for recruits until the mid-1980s, when the ceiling was lifted to conform to federal anti-discrimination laws. Since then, the oldest academy graduate on record was 52-year-old Vic Gerardi.

A similar regulation change allowed 59-year-old Edward Olivares to join the Los Angeles Police Department in 1994. But Olivares, who was accompanied by TV news crews during his first patrol, turned in his badge five months later.

Olivares’ superiors asked him to resign or be fired because he did not meet the department’s standards and posed a danger to himself and the public, department officials said. But Olivares blamed jealousy due to the publicity he attracted and unfair skepticism about his age. He fought the department but in March it rejected his bid to rejoin.

Walter’s instructors at the sheriff’s academy predicted no such problems for their pupil, who scored 88 out of a possible 100 points in his final evaluation.

“He’s one of the strongest recruits in our class,” said Deputy Brian Hill. “We wish we could mold all our recruits into something like Michael Walter.”

After two more weeks of training, Walter will report for his first assignment: guard duty at the Pitchess jail in Castaic, which is how all deputies spend their first few years with the department.