Cops and Robbers

Two police cars, lights flashing, race into a gravel-covered parking
lot next to a rail yard in Georgetown, boxing in a small red coupe. A
voice booms over the patrol car’s PA system,

ordering the driver out of the car. A young man in a plain white
T-shirt steps out. The arresting officers, guns pulled, order him to
walk slowly toward the two patrol cars. When he gets close, one of the
officers, dressed in SWAT-style fatigues, handcuffs him and pushes him
to the ground. The young man in white grunts, then bursts into giggles.
So does the crowd of teenagers who’ve gathered to watch the scene play
out.

“All right, let’s freeze it here,” says Officer Martin Welte, who’s
also been observing. The four “cops,” all teenagers, lower their guns
and help the kid in the white T-shirt off the ground.

The seemingly tense situation that just unfolded is,
in fact,
anything but. The young men dressed in black fatigues aren’t carrying
real guns, and they certainly aren’t real cops. They’re part of SPD’s
Explorer program—a little-known, four-decades-old project that’s
like a Boy Scout troop for teenagers who want to be, or just play,
cops.

The program—funded by the Seattle Police Foundation, a
nonprofit that works closely with SPD—puts 14-to-21-year-old
teens through several levels of training. While equipment and uniforms
are provided free of charge, Explorers have to pay for their own name
tags, handcuffs, and $2 meeting fee.

In the last year, local media, including The Stranger, have
taken SPD to task over repeated misconduct allegations; the department
has also had trouble attracting new recruits.

While kids aren’t flocking to the Explorers program, it’s still
another recruiting pool the department can draw from—and has.

In many ways, it seems strange that such a program even
exists—teenagers, practically by definition, aren’t supposed to
want to hang out with cops. But every other week, between 15 and 20
young men and women—the current class is predominantly white and
male, save for one ex-cheerleader—show up to hear officers talk
about life on the beat, learn tactical maneuvers and shoot guns with
SWAT teams, and even run security or direct traffic at events such as
Seafair.

Given the recent streak of misconduct allegations against SPD
officers, the idea of the department indoctrinating young,
impressionable recruits is a bit jarring. That could be why a number of
the Explorers keep their affiliation with the group quiet.

Back at the fake traffic stop, Explorer Ben Frieler looks on as his
classmates run through the traffic-stop drill. Frieler, 20, says he
gets “a lot [of crap] when I talk about [the Explorers] to my friends,”
Frieler says. “Cops don’t have the [best] reputation.”

“I didn’t tell my friends about [being in the Explorers] at first,”
says Jon Barber, a lanky 19-year-old with a crew cut. Barber, the
Explorers’ class clown, doesn’t seem like the type to be shy about
anything, but when asked why he’s in the program, he clams up.

After a bit of prodding, Barber explains that he’s following in the
footsteps of his older brother, SPD officer Joselito Barber. The elder
Barber had been out of the police academy just five months when he was
killed in the line of duty, when a six-time felon ran a red light and
plowed into his patrol car on 23rd Avenue and Yesler Way.

In its 40 years, the Explorers program has never had more than 10 to
20 participants. But Officer Hatzenbuehler says his small band of
recruits take their work very seriously.

While Explorers aren’t generally called on to help with police
work—they don’t actually have any police
powers—Hatzenbuehler says one Explorer helped him bust an auto
thief by text messaging with the suspect’s friends to get more info
about the case.

As Hatzenbuehler brags about the Explorers, the class spontaneously
begins doing push-ups in unison. “I deal with kids out on the street
and it’s bad stuff,” Hatzenbuehler says. “You come in here and it’s a
good group.”

jonah@thestranger.com