Sunday, March 23, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
They're not rent-a-cops. They're the real McCoys with real guns, real badges, real handcuffs and real billy clubs.
Even so, Clark County School District Police believe they're not always taken seriously -- particularly by some administrators and teachers.
The 82 officers on the force train at the Southern Nevada Law Enforcement Academy, the same one attended by recruits in the North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City police departments, along with marshals, park rangers and state gaming officers. (Metro Police runs its own academy.)
Twenty-two recruits are attending a school police academy, and, if they all graduate in late July, the force will have more than 100 officers.
Still, according to Superintendent Brian Cram, it's "not a full-service police department and was never intended to be."
That's not true, said Jack Lazzarotto, police services director. It's either a police force or it's not, he said.
School police work with other agencies, and there's an interagency agreement for backup, not for other departments to take over a case. When an investigation calls for crime lab or forensics work, then officers call in another local agency.
"That perception was there when the department first turned from security to police (in 1989)," Lazzarotto said. "If you speak to any person who's involved in law enforcement, they will tell you that we work together and that the respect factor is there. I can't do anything about changing old mind-sets, but those are limited to a few."
School police became state-certified peace officers in 1989. But it wasn't until this month that the division's name was formally changed from security services to police services.
In 1989, the School Board forwarded a request to the state Legislature to revise the state law to allow changing from a security force to a police department "with appropriate personnel within that department designated as Clark County School District Police officers." The measure was approved by legislators.
Their salaries, however, don't come close to those of other agencies in the valley. School police start out at $25,210 a year, 38 percent less than Henderson Police, 30 percent less than North Las Vegas, 28.5 percent less than Metro and 28 percent less than Boulder City. For school police sergeants, the salaries are 51 percent less than at Metro.
"I think we have one of the greatest police departments in town," said Phil Gervasi, president of the district's Police Officers Association. "We need to get a salary that is at least livable and in tune with other departments in the area."
Cram sees school police as role models for kids more than as an arm of the law.
"Our job is to spend time on campuses, to be a visible presence," Cram said. "I believe what we should do is be complimentary to Metro. In my mind, if we have a sexual assault, I would want Metro Police involved in that. ... We look at them as cops. We believe they're a user-friendly, student-friendly police force. Our mission was designed from day one to be a different police agency. We're not trying to replace Metro here."
He said he asked Clark County Sheriff Jerry Keller about four months ago if Metro's officers would "support or be the primary" response to crimes because "Metro has the right and the responsibility to come to our campuses."
Part of the reason for having Metro respond, Cram said, is if school police make too many arrests, they have to spend time in court.
"We cannot afford to spend all our time in court," he said. "Our job is to spend our time on campuses."
But Gervasi argued that "it's not part of (Metro's) budget to enforce the law on campuses."
Officer Ken Young, spokesman for the school district police, said being a cop means there will be some court time.
"One of the classes taught in the academy is courtroom demeanor," he said. "Going to court is expected."
In fact, school officers are proud of having identified a suspect three days after a drive-by shooting last month at Rancho High School. It was investigators with school police who identified the suspected shooter and forwarded the case to the district attorney's office.
A warrant for the suspect's arrest is pending, and a national all-points bulletin is about to be issued, school police said. School police arrested the suspected driver the day of the shooting on unrelated charges.
The individual officers who patrol the schools and make arrests say they're a full-fledged police force, just doing their job.
"If a crime is occurring, say a senior citizen is being battered across the street from a school or an officer is en route between properties and sees a crime, that officer is going to react," Young said. "I don't think that citizen is going to care if the officer is from Mars or anywhere else. That senior citizen knows that the officer helped and that's what we're trained to do. It's our job."
Lazzarotto, who has been with the district for 22 years, added:
"I think it would be a sad day in our city when a school police officer sees a crime or one of our students is assaulted, shot or killed across the street from a campus and we can't act because someone wants us right on the campus. Our training dictates that we have to do whatever is necessary to retain safety."
Gervasi, who retired from the New York Police Department before coming to Las Vegas about five years ago, said most cops who join the force do so because of their love for children. Like him, some officers are retired from other departments.
"We chose to work with children," he said. "I would do anything for a child. That's what's in my heart. We want to help them in any way we can. They're our future."
"You're a police officer 24 hours a day," Gervasi said. "If something happens, you cannot walk away from it. That's the oath we take. It's the same oath police take across the country."
In the 1989 plan, when the department became a police force, there was a recommendation to add two lieutenants. That was never done. There are five sergeants for 86 officers, unlike other agencies where squads of anywhere from eight to 15 officers are under a sergeant, with a lieutenant overseeing the squads in a division.
While the attitude toward officers within the district isn't always what they wish it would be, it's just the opposite outside, police said.
In fact, the department is one of 96 school police departments within the United States and Canada and is recognized nationally for its community achievements, including working with the Boy Scouts, donating bicycles to underprivileged children, Adopt-A-Cop and Leadership Camp, to name a few.
The first school police force in the country was the San Diego Unified School District Police, formed in 1970, said Officer Jim Snead, a veteran with that department.
He said they, too, used to be looked upon as security officers. But that perception can be turned around, he said.
"You have to be able to handle your own cases and do your stuff," he said. "With the administrators, when all the stationery and business cards say police and not security, you can turn it around. We have some old holdouts who will say, 'We want a cop. Let's call San Diego PD.' When they call, San Diego PD says, 'You have your own force. Call them,' if it's something we should be handling."
He said the "old hard-line people" will retire and move on, making way for younger administrators who have grown up with the police.
"As they become principals, vice principals and administrators, they don't have that old perception," he said. "There's that mutual respect and understanding."
He noted that his department's salaries now match those of other law enforcement agencies in Southern California.
"It took a long time, but we got it up there," Snead said.
Young, named Officer of the Year two years ago at the national conference of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers, said: "A lot of parents call us and thank us for the job we're doing. We go out and do a lot of badge-friendly-type things that people never hear about.
"We're a Cadillac sometimes driven like a Volkswagen."
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