Jenny MarderIt was a crime-free day for...

Jenny Marder

It was a crime-free day for senior police volunteers: Signs had been

taken down, all of the vacation houses were safely locked, and

suspicious behavior was nil.

Nothing could be a better indicator that Surf City’s retired

senior volunteers were doing their job.

The Retired Senior Volunteer Program, made up of some 65 men and

women over the age of 55, help ease the burden for the Police

Department, which has suffered severe cutbacks over the past two

years.

Volunteers have taken over duties that police officers no longer

have the time or staffing for. They answer phones, write handicapped

parking citations, educate children on public safety and direct

traffic in school zones. They watch over houses when families are on

vacation, and they assist at accident scenes.

“They provide things to citizens that we wouldn’t be able to

provide,” Huntington Beach Police Lt. Craig Junginger said. “They’re

our eyes and ears on the streets.”

Volunteers put in 10,000 hours last year, Junginger said.

“[Police] just don’t have the time or the energy to jump out and

take down signs,” volunteer Don Estrin said.

By the end of the week, the volunteers had already removed most

yard sale, garage sale and misplaced realty signs.

So on Nov. 13, Estrin, 75 and fellow senior volunteer Don Bunker,

76, spent the day checking up on empty vacation houses, patrolling

the city and watching out for “suspicious people on bicycles.”

“Our whole premise is PR,” Bunker said. “We want to reflect a nice

image for the Police Department.”

Not every day is so uneventful.

While on patrol once, Bunker witnessed a man severely beating his

wife by the boardwalk.

“He was really beating her, to the point where he had bloodied her

nose,” Bunker said.

Bunker radioed the police and restrained the man, preventing him

from causing his wife further harm, until the police came.

Both men said they had developed tremendous respect for the city’s

police department since they began working with them as volunteers.

“There are so many interesting things that these guys do, and they

handle it like it’s nothing,” Estrin said. “The officers are so

smooth, they’re so used to taking care of situations ... . Observing

what they do just makes us want to help all we can. And that’s why we

do it.”