As Rookies Go, This One’s a Real Dummy

The newest member of the Sheriff’s Department will be working 24 hours a day, but you won’t hear him complaining about it.

Deputy Harry Handsom, a mechanical dummy dressed in a uniform and equipped with a video camera and a speaker, starts his duties next week at the Industry station, where he will be posted around stores and businesses to deter crime.

His first assignment: To keep a lookout over a movie theater parking lot from a nearby office window.

“He poses a double threat to criminals, because even if they figure out he’s a decoy, his eyes are a camera and he could be recording them,” said Sgt. Tim Murakami.

The rookie deputy will be used in a pilot program at the Industry station, which has already reduced crime by putting life-size cardboard cutouts of deputies on roofs and in cars, Murakami said.

“At first the deputies thought it was a joke, until they started realizing they were taking fewer crime reports because of the cutouts,” he said.

The robot was donated to the department by a company in Boulder City, Nev.