CDA PD Geriatric Division

Rain splats on the windshield and the petals from flowering trees stick to the pavement as Jim Strinz wheels a white Impala through a Coeur d’Alene neighborhood near Sherman Avenue.

It is morning coffee klatsch time, but the only radio Strinz has turned up is from central dispatch.

“K337, status check,” a voice on the radio pines.

“K337, Code four...” Strinz utters by way of reply.

He views with a jaundiced eye the flat tire of a pickup truck that has a block of wood under an axle. If the pickup is immobile it has to be moved off the street, and it’s Strinz’s job to let the owner know.

Strinz, a volunteer for the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, pulls an orange tag from the center console, turns on the flashers that loom over the Impala’s cabin and opens his door to slip outside into the cool May morning.

As a Citizen on Patrol — C.O.P. — Strinz and his fellow volunteers help the department with duties that may be neglected in the busy work day of regular, uniformed officers. Patrolling streets for abandoned vehicles, illegally parked cars, trucks, campers, or boat trailers, and fielding citizen complaints are among duties the volunteers perform during shifts that may last four hours, a couple times a week.

They work closely with the department’s code enforcement officers, and if things get hairy, they call for backup or turn over the task to a real cop.

Strinz sees his job as an ambassador of the department. He would rather mediate a problem and help people find a solution than put them in a bind. If there’s potential for a confrontation, he backs away.

“I’m a 76-year-old man,” Strinz quips. “It’s above my pay grade. And my pay grade is zero.”

For almost a decade, the police department has trained and sent volunteers on the road. Many of them are retirees, although the ranks have included younger unemployed citizens, most of them men.

The numbers run from a dozen to 25, which is the highest number of volunteers the department has had since 2005 when the program began, said volunteer coordinator Larry Seaward, who retired from Pacific Bell after spending 29 years in the Army. Although some of the volunteers come from a military background — Strinz is a retired Marine — the men are from many walks.

There are retired beer and bread company managers, former police officers, power company and telecommunication executives, Forest Service managers and retired professors among the ranks of motor-bound ticket-pushers and abandoned-vehicle- finders.

Few women join the cadre, something Seaward laments.

“It’s not just for guys,” Seaward said. “We’d love to have women do this too.”

Their jobs range from volunteer investigations, records and fleet management to patrol and ferreting out abandoned vehicles.

There is, however, a troubling trend on the street beat that has less to do with broken-down cars or motorists parking too far from the curb or too near a hydrant:

“We’re having a hard time getting volunteers,” said Jared Reneau, a detective whose many duties include keeping an eye on the cadre of pro-bono cops.

A dwindling pool of volunteers — the department has 14, which is down from the usual 18 — leaves others logging more hours or puts the onus of doing their jobs on uniformed cops who often don’t have the spare time, Reneau said.

“They are really invaluable to us, to get those things done,” Reneau said.

Although the volunteers, who drive white cars with Citizens on Patrol logos gracing their doors and small, yellow light bars on the tops of their cabs, are from a variety of backgrounds adding a rich mix of experience to the small force, they are gray foxes, said Seaward, which can be cause for concern at times.

“We have two with Ph.Ds,” said Seaward. “But there isn’t one of us who isn’t old enough to collect Medicare. We call ourselves the Geriatric Division of the PD, and the best way to see this place go wild is by not checking in on the radio.”

Getting cleared for service is one of the obstacles potential volunteers face, Seaward said.

Their average age is 66, he said, “... and when you go this long, the chances of having a felony get better.”

The rewards for those who don’t wash out, quit or quietly move on are substantial enough to keep at it, said Terry Drube, a former sales manager and three-year volunteer.

“It’s a good way to learn community service, and to learn the city,” Drube said. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn.”

There can, however, be repercussions that someone towing a vehicle, or writing a parking ticket would expect.

“You got to learn to duck,” Drube said. “And run.”

The group assigned to parking violations patrols more than 90 percent of the city, while Diamond Parking, the city’s parking lot vendor, serves the downtown corridor. The men don’t have sirens. They’re not authorized to pull over a moving vehicle. Their focus is the static.

“We get a lot of abandoned vehicles,” some of them stolen, Seaward said.

As Strinz, wearing the blue windbreaker, ball cap and slacks of a CPD volunteer, wheels the Impala through a gray morning in Coeur d’Alene, he checks on the usual suspects: Cars and pickup trucks and some camper trailers that he tagged days earlier, or whose owners he contacted to apprise them of their illegally parked rigs. He is near the interstate looking for a Pontiac with a tarp over it, parked in the street.

“He moved it,” Strinz chuckles. “Good for him. I gave him a slide for a while.”

Closer to downtown he checks a multi-unit residence with an ancient shade tree in the yard. Tenants often park in front of a swinging-door garage, blocking the sidewalk, and Jim asked them to quit.

“Mothers in baby carriages have to walk in the street, putting themselves in harm’s way to get around your car,” he told them.

They understood the logic.

“That makes sense,” they said, and he appreciated their cooperation.

He didn’t have to duck and run.

•••

Anyone interested in volunteering for the Coeur d’Alene Police Department Citizens on Patrol program should call the police department at (208) 769-2320, or stop by the department at 3818 Schreiber Way. Potential volunteers are vetted through a background check and must have a valid driver’s license. More information and an application are available on the police department website: www.cdaid.org/1035/departments/police/programs