Truancy Patrol : Operation Safeschool Gets Tardy Teen-Agers to Classroom

At 8:15 a.m. on a school day, Sgt. Tony O’Brien swung his patrol car into the parking lot of Winchell’s Donut House at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Southwest Los Angeles.

Moments later he emerged from the shop, leading three girls who were carrying half-finished doughnuts and drinks.

When the patrol car pulled up in front of the campus of Manual Arts High School down the street, the teen-agers tried to escape embarrassment by hurrying from the car. But O’Brien escorted them to the “tag room,” the school cafeteria where tardy students attend a lecture on punctuality and do their homework while waiting for the next class to start.

The girls were just three of as many as 400 students who are late to school daily, said Manual Arts Principal Robert Barner.

They have been picked up as part of Operation Safeschool, a cooperative effort by the school and the Southwest Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Under the program, officers patrol the community around the campus, picking up truants and taking them to school.

O’Brien, 41, is one of six officers who regularly patrol a three-block radius around Manual Arts from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Any student picked up after 8:15 is assumed to be tardy and escorted to school, rather than arrested for truancy.

Students who are picked up more than three times are taken to one of 10 stay-in-school centers that provide counseling and contact parents to resolve problems.

The Operation Safeschool patrols are in addition to the officers sent to high schools when crimes are reported. The primary responsibility of Safeschool cars is to pick up tardy students and to create a safe environment so students can go to and from school without fear of being robbed or attacked, officials say.

School principals and police credit Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden with pushing for the first Operation Safeschool program at Mt. Vernon Junior High School. It was established after parents complained to him last year that their children were being attacked on their way to school.

Other schools began working with their police divisions to adopt similar programs. Some have since been discontinued because of budget cuts, but Manual Arts is one of six schools where the program still exists. With Mt. Vernon, the others are Roosevelt, Belmont, Jefferson and Dorsey high schools.

Southwest Division Capt. Garrett Zimmon said he considered Operation Safeschool a high enough priority to create a second program at Dorsey High at a time of budget cutbacks. Zimmon values the program because it emphasizes education and keeping youths out of the justice system.

“We don’t spend enough time with youth to keep them from getting there,” Zimmon said. “We can’t deal with crime to the detriment of our youth.

When the Manual Arts Safeschool program started in February, officers were bringing in about 600 students a month, said Barner. But the numbers went down as students started to learn about the patrols.

“The word got out big time,” O’Brien said. So much so, O’Brien said, that students who did get caught would “cooperate.” Some, he said, would even confess, “You got me.”

Safeschool’s success in increasing attendance cannot be specifically measured because of lack of information on why students are absent and because there are many other programs at Manual designed to bolster attendance and lower the dropout rate, school officials said.

However, school officials are fervent in their belief the pickups and the patrols make a difference..

“I know it has a very positive impact,” said Manual Arts Assistant Principal Earl Veets, who is in charge of absentees.

Police data shows a decrease in crime resulting from increased police visibility in the Manual Arts area. When the patrols started, robberies and auto theft in the area decreased 56% in one month, O’Brien said, and, from January through June, neighborhood robberies dropped about 14%.

Winchell’s manager Yakubu Kargbo said having the police coming into his shop two or three times a day has resulted in fewer armed robberies.

Increased patrols are also credited with capturing a rapist who was preying on high school girls.

Safeschool officers said that what they like most about the program is that interacting with students has improved the image of the police in the community.

Officers make a point of coming on campus to joke with and mingle with the students and, in O’Brien’s case, to quote Martin Luther King Jr. as he lectured students recently about the importance of education.

During a break one day, students laughed and talked with one another, but some kept a wary eye on the officers. Others were bold enough to approach them.

“These are the coolest kids,” said Officer Angie Shepard, 28, who does not take offense at comments like that of one young woman who told her, “I don’t like the police, especially lady cops.”

The next day, she said, the student returned to tell her that she was all right.

“All you have to do is be firm, fair and professional,” Shepard said.