By Scott Daugherty
The Capital
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Sitting in a squad car with a radar gun Thursday morning near Germantown Elementary School in Annapolis, Marvin Haiman looked every bit a police officer.
And when the owner of a plum Mercedes gets a warning letter next month for driving by at 20 mph above the posted speed limit, he will probably think he was spotted by a fully sworn member of the city Police Department.
But Haiman is not a cop.
For the past five months, Haiman and another volunteer with the department have run radar in Annapolis to discourage speeding at some of the city’s problem spots.
“This is really rewarding,” said Haiman, 23, who works in volunteer services with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., and in turn volunteers as an auxiliary officer in Annapolis. “You know you are getting people to pay a little more attention to what they are doing.”
City Police Chief Michael Pristoop praised Haiman and the department’s fledgling auxiliary program last week as a safe way to supplement his department’s patrol officers.
“They are an extra set of eyes and ears,” said Pristoop, who hopes to double the size of the four-man unit in the coming weeks and months. “They free us up so we can do more on the street.”
In addition to the pseudo-speed traps - which do not result in any citations or traffic stops, just written warnings delivered by mail - auxiliary officers may write real parking tickets, direct traffic during special events and emergencies and verbally remind drivers of traffic laws.
They have access to a blue squad car with primarily amber emergency lights on top and almost unabated access to the city’s Police Department.
Two days a week at city police headquarters, auxiliary officers take fingerprints from area residents undergoing background checks.
“We try to take some of the more routine tasks off their shoulders so they can go catch the bad guys,” said Ron Shriner, an auxiliary officer whose day job is teaching social studies at Annapolis High School.
Not all the same
Modern auxiliary and reserve police officer programs stem from World War II, according to Brooke Webster, president of the Reserve Police Officers Association. With many career police officers deployed oversees, communities turned to volunteers to supplement their police departments.
Webster said the programs continued to flourish during the Cold War - often doing civil defense work - and later in the late 1960s and 1970s as crime began to mount.
Today, auxiliary police programs differ greatly from department to department.
In Washington, D.C., reserve officers are fully sworn members of the police department allowed to carry weapons and make arrests. In Anne Arundel County, they primarily direct traffic during emergencies, write parking tickets and conduct security evaluations. In Queen Anne’s County, they perform clerical work and take care of the department’s three speed trailers.
Other counties, like Montgomery and Prince George’s County, do not have any reserve officer programs.
Webster said last week that Maryland doesn’t make enough use of reserve officers. As far as she knows, there are no reserve officers in the state who are allowed to carry a gun or make an arrest.
“Reserve and auxiliary deputies in some sheriff’s offices in other states not only patrol, but are in specialized marine, air, mounted, motorcycle units and SWAT teams,” Webster said. “It all depends (on whether) ... the sworn volunteer can commit to the required level of training in addition to his or her family and career commitments.”
To the casual observer, the city’s auxiliary police officers look like the real thing. The only noticeable differences is the color of their uniforms - volunteers wear gray; sworn personnel wear blue - and the titles on their patches and badges. Auxiliary officers also do not carry weapons.
“People never think we are civilians,” Shriner acknowledged Wednesday after posing for a photo with a German tourist near City Dock. “They don’t recognize I’m not armed. They don’t read the patch. ... We look like cops. We drive like cops.”
Safety first
According to the Reserve Police Officers Association, at least 185 reserve officers have died in the line of duty in the United States - some the victim of traffic accidents and others of gunfire, stabbings and beatings. The association’s Roll of Honor dates to 1874.
The list contains the name of only one volunteer police officer from Maryland - an Eastern Shore man who died in 1945. Webster, however, noted that a Howard County auxiliary police officer lost a leg in 2005 while assisting at the scene of a traffic accident.
Shriner said last week he and the city’s other auxiliary officers are concerned about safety. They are asking the department for additional self-defence training and permission to carry pepper spray, he said.
“It might never happen, but there can be occasions when we are standing there writing a parking ticket and a guy gets weird,” said the grandfather of four.
Pristoop said he was open to the idea, but that his staff was still vetting the proposal.
What it takes
An auxiliary police officer in Annapolis must complete 25 hours of classroom training and 16 hours of field training, according to City Police Capt. Cynthia Howard, who supervises the program. An applicant also must be at least 21 years old, have a good driving record, be in good physical condition and be able to pass a background check and a drug test.
An applicant can’t have a serious misdemeanor or felony conviction on his or her record.
The city had a small auxiliary program several years ago. The department restarted it in 2009 when Shriner - a former reserve officer with the county police department - called Howard and asked about volunteering with the city. Within a couple of months, he was downtown directing traffic and answering tourists’ questions.
Responding to public complaints, Howard last fall asked her two most experienced volunteers if they would be interested in clocking speeders near West Annapolis Elementary School. They wouldn’t pull over cars or even issue tickets, but rather write down tag numbers and let the department send out letters and written warnings to the vehicle’s registered owners.
Shriner and Haiman jumped at the chance. After learning how to use the department’s radar guns last February, they set up shop on Melvin Avenue in West Annapolis. In time, they also learned how to use a device that electronically reads license plates and started running radar in other spots in Annapolis - including along Spa Road near the city garages and on Rowe Boulevard near the state archives.
While required to put in only 10 hours a month, most auxiliary officers volunteer for much more.
Over the past seven months, Haiman volunteered 272 hours. During that time, he wrote 102 parking tickets and issued 87 warnings for speeding, he said.
Shriner said he has spent 425 hours in uniform - more than 60 hours a month.
Neither is complaining.
“I don’t see this as eating into my free time,” said Shriner - adding, laughing, that his wife of 37 years might not agree. “This is something I really like to do.”
Copyright 2011 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.