L.A.’s ‘Top Cop’ Has Habit of Saving Lives

When LAPD Officer Mike Grasso dove into the freezing, rushing Pacoima Wash to save a 7-year-old boy from drowning last year, it wasn’t the first time he had saved a life.

Fifteen years earlier, Grasso, then answering 911 emergency calls, led a panicked mother through CPR steps to save her year-old son, who had stopped breathing in his crib.

The two events came together for Grasso last year when the first boy, now a teenager, called the man who helped save his life. The boy and his mother heard the officer’s name during dramatic television footage of the Pacoima rescue. “I never got to say thank you,” the boy told him.

“That,” Grasso says now, savoring the moment, “really was amazing.”

Grasso also keeps in contact with the youngster he saved from the Pacoima Wash. And the Los Angeles Police Department, proud of its 16-year employee for that April 1995 event, announced Monday that Grasso won a national “Top Cop” award for his act.

The National Assn. of Police Organizations will honor Grasso at its awards ceremony in Washington next week, with President Clinton expected to attend. Grasso, who teaches officer safety and tactics at the Police Academy, received a Medal of Valor from the LAPD two weeks ago.

“I didn’t stop to think about it then, I wouldn’t think about it now,” said Grasso, 38, who is married to a police officer and has two young daughters. “You don’t have to be a parent--if you saw the look on that kid’s face, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”

It was the kind of move Grasso’s family, friends and co-workers say is typical of the Brooklyn-raised cop who comes from a family of cops. Spontaneous. Altruistic. Instinctual.

“That’s just how he is,” said his wife, Mitzi Grasso, the only female director of the Police Protective League, who was formerly his partner on the job as well. “It’s scary for me, but he wouldn’t think twice about giving up his life to save somebody.”

“It was great on his part--he saved my son’s life,” said Moreno Bastasin. “He’s a good person.”

Grasso wasn’t even on duty when he rescued 7-year-old Jordan Bastasin from the Pacoima Wash. He was on his way to a sports club with his best friend when he saw two shapes bobbing in the water. The pair drove several blocks before Grasso became convinced that two people were being swept away.

They drove their van to the water’s edge and Grasso jumped in. He managed to grab Jordan and a man who was pulled in when he tried to rescue the boy. The current swept the three to a dangerous spot where the wash split, dividing into smaller tunnels and leading into a deep pool with a powerful undertow.

Grasso threw himself onto a concrete divider, still clutching the boy, while the man, who told Grasso that he didn’t know how to swim, got lodged on another divider.

“When I was balanced on that wall, with the boy in my arms, freezing, I was thinking, ‘Wow, I probably could’ve been hurt,’ ” Grasso said.

When Mitzi Grasso first heard of the rescue, she didn’t give it much thought. Home late, she was running a bath for her daughters and listening to her messages on the answering machine.

“I heard Mike’s closest friend say, ‘Mike saved a kid, call me,’ ” she recalled. “I thought ‘Hmmm, Mike saved a kid, that’s what Mike does.’ ”

But the next message was Grasso’s boss telling her to call the hospital. And almost at the same time, her daughter flipped on the television and saw her father clinging to an embankment.

But Grasso, Jordan and the man were all safe, suffering only minor injuries.

But that successful rescue also brought back sad memories for Grasso of a strikingly similar rescue attempt--but one that failed.

Grasso was one of many firefighters, police and motorists who had tried desperately to pull 14-year-old Adam Bischoff from the flood-swollen Los Angeles River in February 1992. Adam, however, disappeared under the water before he reached Grasso and the others.

When he was clinging to the divider with Jordan, Grasso said, he thought of Adam. “I was just thinking that this was not going to happen again.”