VOLUNTEER SPIES ARE SECRET WEAPON IN LAPD'S ARSENAL

The crackling over the walkie-talkie set the strip-mall commandos in
motion, worming their way across a Northridge rooftop to spy on the
wrongdoer below.

It had been a long, shivery night on the roof of Circuit City. No drug
dealers, no gang bangers, no junior high graffiti artists to watch in
the shopping center parking lot.

The four volunteers, members of the LAPD Devonshire Division's
Volunteer Surveillance Team, had settled for sharing coffee cake out
of a Baggie and talking about grandkids. Suburban crime, up until this
moment, had seemed like an oxymoron.

But now there was a report of suspicious activity in a red Honda in
the alley. And as the four graying spies clung to the edge of the
roof, peering and ceaselessly whispering into their walkie-talkies,
they acted as if they were witnessing the storming of Ft. Knox.

"There's this rush you get when a crime is going down right in front
of you and you're watching it and the guy's got no idea you're out
there and the cops are seconds away," says OP-1, a 66-year-old woman
who wears an itchy black ski mask. She and the other volunteers dress
in dark clothing and call each other "OP," shorthand police lingo for
observation post.

In this case, the suspicious activity turned out to be a 20-year-old
man smoking a joint. No matter. This was Northridge, after all. And
when the cops stepped out of their squad car to make the arrest,
chests puffed out, one of the OPs pumped his fist in the air.

"Way to go OP-3!" a cop shouted over the radio. "You spotted him, man.
Good police work."

Intrepid Teams Go the Extra Mile

The surveillance team, the first of several in the city, has been
spying for the Devonshire Division of the Los Angeles Police
Department for the past eight years. They've huddled in cardboard
boxes in the rain, waited in cars, worn wigs, scaled walls, peeked
through holes in newspapers and helped police make 200-plus arrests
this year from truancy to burglary.

The volunteers work in tandem with uniformed police officers on
surveillance details by discreetly observing high-crime areas and
calling for information to squad cars positioned a few blocks away,
but they don't make arrests themselves.

Their success has spawned similar programs elsewhere, including the
LAPD's Harbor and West L.A. divisions. Many of the 55 members are
retired and have time for late-night details, including an 83-year-old
former Navy captain.

"It's better than fishing," said 58-year-old OP-6, who, like the other
members of the Devonshire squad, didn't want to give his real name for
fear of retribution. "We catch something every night."

The mastermind of the group is 28-year-old LAPD Officer Don Graham, a
boyish patrolman who wears Hawaiian shirts and faded jeans and glows
with an enthusiasm that's hard to suppress.

Calling himself a nerd with a gun, he gets volunteers pumped up before
each detail by holding a roll call in the real squad room and saying
things like "Let's be careful out there," before dispatching the squad.

Graham says the volunteers, who usually pull three four-hour details
per week, have saved the department millions of dollars.

"We wouldn't be able to gather intelligence like this if we had to
staff these details with paid officers," he said.

But Carol Watson, a board member of Police Watch, a Los Angeles-based
nonprofit organization that scrutinizes police conduct, worries that
the volunteers put themselves at risk and create unnecessary liability
for the city.

Plus, "The idea of turning society into one where ordinary people are
spying on each other is not a healthy social climate," she said.

Counters Joe Eddy, a Devonshire Division lieutenant: "If you want to
get esoteric about it, this is what community policing is all
about--residents watching over their neighborhoods."

Eddy also pointed out that, after eight years and hundreds of details,
no volunteer has ever been hurt or overstepped the bounds of being an
observer, such as trying to make an arrest.

Truants Are a Favorite Target

On a recent morning detail, the volunteers were itching for their next
mission: busting truants, prized quarry that's easy to catch.

"You guys know the drill," Graham said in the roll call room. "Let's
get out there and teach those little punks some respect."

With those words fortifying their already unswerving sense of mission,
the volunteers filed out of the police station, into their cars and
drove to positions around James Monroe High School in North Hills.

OP-1 was waiting in her dented Chrysler, its seats swathed in dog
hair, her head covered in a very unconvincing nappy gray wig.

"You never know if somebody is going to recognize you from an earlier
detail and blow your cover," she said. Four other OP's were also in
cars on side streets near the high school, eyes peeled for kids
leaving school. OP-5 had the toughest assignment, parked across from a
high fence known to be a popular escape route.

Los Angeles city ordinance No. 45.04 says it's a misdemeanor to be on
the streets when you're supposed to be in school, even if it's just a
matter of being 10 minutes late.

Ten officers in several squad cars were positioned around the school
but not too close to give the operation away. A mini-jail, consisting
of a few officers, a table for booking, and a couple of dozen folding
chairs, was set up in a parking lot a few blocks away from the school.

"We got a male juvenile with flaming red hair walking north on
Haskell," one OP called over the radio. A minute later a squad car
zoomed by, a shock of red hair visible in the back seat.

"We got a female juvie dressed in all black . . . " another call went
out.

Within hours, police had turned the parking lot holding area into a
pen of misery. Kids with their hair still wet sat on metal folding
chairs rubbing their wrists where the handcuffs had dug in, waiting
for a citation.

Big, macho-looking boys cried. Many girls, too, with gray mascara
tears splashing down their cheeks.

At times like this, Graham and other officers turned down the banter
and tried to cheer up the dejected.

"The reason why we arrest you is because we don't want to see you
fail," said one officer nicknamed "Hooch."

Anonymity Is Protected

Meanwhile, in the parked cars, the volunteers continued to work the
radios.

They called in every kid they saw on the streets.

OP-1 sat on the passenger side of her Chrysler, pretending she was
waiting for someone.

For a housewife and a grandmother who had never set foot in a police
station until she signed up for the volunteer squad at its inception,
OP-1 has seen a lot of action. She's helped bust taggers, drug
dealers, cat burglars and once a serial rapist wanted for assaulting
women in a Valley park.

"It felt pretty good to put that one away," she said.

Sitting on her dog-hair seats, OP-1 unfolded a newspaper with a little
hole in it and held it in front of her face, with her eye peering
through the hole. All she needed now was some hapless kid eager for a
few hours of daytime liberty to step into view.

"The best part is the kids think the school police just happened to
catch them by chance," she said. "They have no idea that we even exist."