Reservists Ousted From Training

Two Los Angeles Police Department reserve officers say there wasn’t much tolerance shown them when they showed up for a “Tools for Tolerance for Law Enforcement” training program last week.

The two contend they were humiliated when they were kicked out halfway through an eight-hour seminar at the Museum of Tolerance because their $200 seminar fees had not been paid.

The state-funded program has taught tolerance to about 42,000 police officers and civilian police department employees for five years.

But more than 200 Los Angeles police reservists, who work as patrol officers, are not covered by the funding. Reserve officers Gary Becker and Jon Zvi discovered that when they took a day off from their civilian jobs for the tolerance training.

“In the middle, they tapped us on the shoulder and said we have to leave. I thought it was part of the training exercise, to teach us how we’d feel if we were discriminated against,” said Becker, 47, an Agoura Hills parts distributor who has worked as a West Valley Division patrol officer since 1978.

“But we weren’t invited back in--they escorted us to the lobby. I asked if it was a joke, and they said no, they weren’t getting paid for us to be there so we had to leave. It was totally embarrassing, getting kicked out of the Museum of Tolerance. They treated us like kids who snuck in the back of the theater to watch the movie for free.”

Line reserve officers are unpaid but are trained as officers and carry weapons and make arrests. They are required to meet the same continuing-education requirements as regular officers. The tolerance training is certified by the state and counts toward the 24 hours of continuing education required every two years.

Puzzled police officials who were investigating the funding snafu Monday said the reservists were apparently placed on the wrong training list by a department clerk.

Museum program coordinator Sunny Lee said reserve police officers are “not in the category of reimbursable” under the state plan and cannot be invited in for training with regular officers and civilians, such as fingerprint technicians and file clerks.

But the pair’s ouster “was deeply regrettable and a definite mistake.... I’m not making any excuses whatsoever,” said Liebe Geft, director of the Museum of Tolerance. She said a scaled-down free program is scheduled for June 2.

But Becker said he and Zvi, a 60-year-old Woodland Hills businessman in civilian life, won’t be there. Still irritated by the incident, Becker said he can’t help but note one irony: Both officers are Jewish.

“And Jon’s mother is a Holocaust survivor,” Becker said. “Jon could teach that program about tolerance.”