West Covina Police Program Deploys Seniors on Patrol

Bruce Shepherd patrols the streets of West Covina on Mondays with an eye for the suspicious, the illegal, the alarming and the just-not-right.

Wednesdays, his wife, Julie, takes the proverbial baton.

If they’re lucky, they may help save a life or catch a felon. If they’re unlucky, they drive to Los Angeles’ Twin Towers Jail to pick up urine samples.

The Shepherds, 69 and 66 respectively, are part of West Covina’s Seniors Helping Our Police--or SHOP--program.

West Covina’s Police Department is one of the few in the country that asks its 31 senior volunteers to do regular police work--although the department tries to keep the volunteers out of danger.

While volunteers in many police departments typically file documents and perform other clerical chores, the SHOP “cops” wear police uniforms and badges, carry radios and drive hand-me-down Ford Taurus patrol cars. The cars have orange light bars to distinguish them from the regulation cars’ blue and red.

Since 1991, senior volunteers have provided more than $1 million in services, performing tasks that police or part-time employees normally would do: getting evidence from a constellation of crime labs, picking up parole information, serving subpoenas, directing traffic and issuing parking tickets.

West Covina Police Chief Frank Wills cites FBI statistics showing that West Covina officers are less burdened by non-urgent calls than nearly any department in the county. He credits the senior volunteers with freeing up officers for more pressing work.

“This isn’t a feel-good program,” Wills said. “These seniors are saving the city a tremendous amount of money and helping to reduce crime.”

Julie Shepherd, a retired clerk for the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District, said, “I never thought of my husband and I as money savers, but I guess we are.”

Bruce Shepherd was a principal in the West Covina Unified School District for 29 years.

In August, the Atlanta-based Foundation for the Improvement of Justice, which surveys the country for innovative approaches to law enforcement, honored the 9-year-old SHOP program for its impact on crime and quality of life in West Covina.

The program began as a response to the recession of the late 1980s, which saw cutbacks in the services that West Covina’s police could offer. As it turned out, many of those services played a vital role in the community’s perception of the police, said Lt. Lee Rossman, who wrote the proposal for SHOP and is the program’s coordinator.

Police-affiliated citizens’ patrols are growing throughout Southern California. In the San Gabriel Valley, Monterey Park, Temple City and Alhambra each have their own volunteer police programs. But SHOP is unique because it involves seniors and gives them some responsibilities normally restricted to regular police officers.

Volunteers in Alhambra and Temple City, for instance, do not serve subpoenas.

In some cities, senior volunteers might pick up evidence from crime labs but do not give parking tickets or cruise through areas known for crime.

SHOP volunteers closely resemble police officers--except that they are grayer. Also, their uniforms are light blue instead of navy, and they do not carry guns.

In a recent encounter, an elderly woman in a muumuu bolted out of her home and in a raspy voice yelled, “Hey!” as soon as Bill Clark, 68, and two other SHOP volunteers walked up to her neighbor’s house for a routine vacation check.

Clark, a volunteer since the program’s infancy, greeted the agitated woman.

“Is there a problem, ‘cause I’m supposed to be watching that house,” she said.

“No ma’am, we’re just helping you watch the house,” said Clark, a former supervisor at Southern California Gas Co.

The woman registered instant relief, then shook Clark’s hand.

“We looked like cops to her,” said Clark, a fit-looking man with a wiry physique and a gray crew cut.

In fact, although the West Covina Police Department goes out of its way to keep the seniors from harm, just wearing a uniform may place them in danger--real or imagined, said Willie Vogel, 72, a six-year volunteer and former truck driver.

A reserve police officer once asked Vogel if he wore a bullet-proof vest. “No, of course not,” Vogel replied.

“You drive to downtown L.A.?” the officer asked. Vogel said he did.

“And you don’t wear a vest?” the officer asked again.

“My friend’s wife wouldn’t let him join SHOP because she thought the uniform would invite bullets,” Vogel said. “I told her, ‘Then don’t let him go out into the sidewalk either, ‘cause he might be run over by a runaway truck.’ ”

Vogel said he enjoys letting people in West Covina know that someone is looking out for them. But there is one thing even a trouper like Vogel is reluctant to do.

He dislikes giving parking tickets. “Bad PR,” said Vogel, who has given no more than 25 tickets in his time with SHOP. (Altogether, SHOP volunteers write about 150 tickets a month, Lt. Rossman said.) “I’d rather tell people, ‘Hey, if you park there you’re going to get a ticket,’ ” Vogel said.

Part of SHOP’s success lies in the fact that it does not require volunteers to do things they find unpleasant. Instead, the program tries to play to their strengths and interests, Clark said.

“Willie, now he likes to drive,” Clark said.

And drive he does--to Glendale, to Los Angeles, to Oceanside. That saves officers’ time for duties in the city.

It all boils down to doing good by the city they all live in, and allowing their Police Department the time for “real” police work.

“Just seeing the smile on somebody’s face when you help them out makes it all worth it. God knows I’m not doing it for the money,” Clark said.