Ex-Officer Is Now Big Man on District’s 3 Campuses

Since he was a boy, Jamie Skeeters dreamed of being top dog at a law enforcement agency.

So in March 1967, he became an Oxnard police officer and for nearly three decades climbed the ranks until he was selected as one of seven station commanders--the third-highest post in the department.

But dangers on the job caused him to be hospitalized 52 times for broken bones and back injuries. By 1996, his heart was so bad he had a 19-hour triple bypass, during which his heart stopped and was revived three times. He was left with a bum heart, and his career seemed over.

About two years later, he’s back with a badge. Skeeters is the first chief of the Ventura County Community College police force, and his job is to fix a department riddled with problems including lagging manpower and rising campus crime.

“He’s like one of those Energizer bunnies. He keeps going and going and going,” said Oxnard Police Assistant Chief Stan Myers, Skeeters’ friend and former partner.

Another former colleague said Skeeters’ decision to return to work is testimony to the type of guy he has always been.

“He wouldn’t wait for things to come to him, he would always go out and make things happen,” said Oxnard Police Cmdr. Rafael Nieves.

Since the college Police Department started more than 30 years ago, it has been supervised by various lieutenants stationed at one of the college district’s three campuses in Ventura, Oxnard or Moorpark.

Although it’s not exactly the job he dreamed of, Skeeters, a stocky 56-year-old with a buzz cut and glasses, says he is suited to his new role and feels fortunate to have a chance to return to law enforcement.

“My lifetime goal was to be a sheriff or chief of police. When I had my heart attack, my law enforcement career was over,” he said. “But I’m a workaholic, so this has been a pleasure.”

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In 1959 at Verdugo Hills High School in the San Fernando Valley community of Sunland-Tujunga, Skeeters was an average student who played football, ran track and cruised with his buddies in his 1952 Mercury convertible.

At the time, he thought about becoming a teacher, but that was before he met Ken Parker, the father of a boy Skeeters was teaching to swim. Parker was an LAPD officer who took Skeeters on his first tour of a police station.

“I could have made some mistakes and gone either way,” Skeeters said of his youth. But after he saw the officers with badges and guns, Skeeters said he knew he wanted to be a cop.

“I was impressed with the spirit and discipline and regimen of it all. I loved the action,” he said during an interview at the college district’s small headquarters at Camarillo Airport.

By 1967, after studying business management at University of Redlands and serving in the Marines, Skeeters, then 25, married and living in Oxnard, asked himself: “Do I want to grade papers every night or do I want to chase bad guys?”

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So during the day he worked at the Oxnard Boys & Girls Club, and in his free time he applied to the Sheriff’s Department and to police stations in Port Hueneme and Oxnard.

That same year, he was offered a job by then-Oxnard Chief Al Jewell, who was on the youth club’s board of directors.

On March 15, 1967, Skeeters became an Oxnard police officer.

Through the years, he worked as a detective, a sergeant and a lieutenant. He stayed with the department as the city grew from 40,000 to more than 150,000 residents and as crime skyrocketed.

He investigated homicides, armed robberies and prostitution. He worked in the mounted patrol and also learned to scuba dive in order to serve on the underwater search-and-rescue team. He delivered two babies and once saved a sick duck.

“He was out there searching for witnesses even in off hours,” said Richard Holmes, supervisor of the district attorney’s major crimes unit and Skeeters’ colleague for more than 20 years.

For five years, Skeeters worked undercover on a presidential narcotics task force. His hair was long and so were his work hours, but he helped catch major drug dealers from here to New Mexico. He kept a journal during that time, which he is using to write a book.

The hair has since been cut and his police uniform has been put away. Nowadays, he favors sports jackets and ties, but he’s much the same guy.

“He’s all cop,” Holmes said.

During his earlier crime-fighting days, Skeeters raised three children with his wife, Kay, started an equestrian ranch called Ojai Valley Farms and played golf.

Those who know Skeeters believed that the triple bypass--which left him with a heart that pumps at half capacity--couldn’t slow him down for long.

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His health nowadays is precarious, at best, he admits. He’s signed on for a six-month stint in his new job, which runs through March.

His assignment, according to the college’s Board of Trustees, is to analyze policing at the district’s three campuses and make recommendations on the future direction of its law enforcement agency.

It’s a charge the new chief hasn’t taken lightly. Despite being mostly administrative, the post demands that Skeeters oversee a department of 25 full- and part-time officers who serve more than 40,000 students and faculty--comparable to the population served by the Port Hueneme Police Department.

“He’s just doing a whale of a job,” said Michael Gregoryk, a deputy chancellor for the district and Skeeters’ supervisor. “We are cognizant he has some potential heart problems, but he is trying to keep the stress part out of it.”

Some who look at his schedule might wonder how he could.

In four months, he has met with college officials, police officers and residents to come up with a long-range plan to better serve students and neighbors living near campuses.

He has identified a need for more officers, studied programs similar to Neighborhood Watch and started recruiting a 10-person citizens advisory board that will include professionals, business owners and community leaders.

The board will meet four times a year to advise the police chief on matters ranging from complaints by residents who live near the campuses to giving input on disciplinary actions involving college police officers.

Skeeters said a dialogue between residents and campus police must occur because those whose homes border the district’s campuses have complained of speeding vehicles and littering since the campus police began downsizing a decade ago. Students and teachers have made similar complaints.

“We have to make sure the communities that surround these campuses don’t sustain these problems,” Skeeters said.

Since he came on board in September, college trustees have approved his request to allow part-time officers to work more hours.

In a preliminary report to be presented to trustees Jan. 19, Skeeters addresses several options to fix the troubled department that include hiring more officers and a full-time chief, supplementing the current force with private security, or contracting with a local law enforcement agency or security company.

Skeeters said his research so far has him leaning toward a final recommendation that would maintain the current college police force but have it supplemented by private security officers who would handle patrolling during non-peak hours.

The push for drastic changes in how campus policing is done at the three campuses follows a gradual, decade-long decrease in full- and part-time officers and an increase in the number of crime reports.

In 1985, there were an average of 30 full-time officers spread among the three campuses versus 15 now, said college Police Sgt. Michael Gasperi.

“You’ve got guys working far more than they should be. It’s lean times,” Gasperi said.

Campus crime statistics confirm that policing with fewer officers has been tough. The problem is so bad that officers have been forced to stop doing certain administrative work, such as maintaining regular crime statistics, in order to have time to investigate cases and patrol, Gasperi said.

The only uniform statistics for the three campuses are from 1996 and 1997.

At Oxnard College, the number of crime reports soared from 69 in 1996 to 110 in 1997.

The increase is due to a rise in the number of alcohol, drug, theft and assault reports, statistics show.

At the Moorpark campus, crime reports in 1996 numbered 85 versus 93 in 1997. The biggest jump was in the number of sex crimes. There were two such reports in 1996 and six the following year.

In response, volunteers at Moorpark College began escorting students to their cars.

The number of reports at Ventura College remained virtually unchanged between 1996 and 1997, Gasperi said, though he expects a tally of reports from 1998 to show an increase in crime at all three campuses.

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“I think they are doing it with smoke and mirrors right now. They are maintaining status quo, but they are not able to be proactive,” said college trustee Bob Gonzales, a Santa Paula police commander. “The opportunity for something to happen is astronomical.”

But those who know him say Skeeters is the man to fix things.

“If I don’t get what I want, I’ll sure make a dent in it,” Skeeters said.

With the exception of a possible extension to his contract to allow him to finish his report and make recommendations, Skeeters has no plans to seek a full-time job.

“I had two goals in my life,” he said. “One was to be a sheriff or a chief of police and the other was to live happily ever after with my wife.”