DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705070051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LARRY BONKO

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

GETTING A FIRST-HAND GLIMPSE OF LOS ANGELES' DARK SIDE

I HAVE SEEN Los Angeles as few visitors see it - riding shotgun with a sergeant of the Los Angeles Police Department, North Hollywood Patrol Division.

In his black-and-white cruiser with ``to protect and serve'' written on the doors, Sgt. Rick Sanchez covers an area of 28 square miles in which more arrests were made last year than in any other L.A. division. Sanchez, with badge No. 3233 pinned to his dark blue uniform, says this of the North Hollywood Patrol Division:

``When the sun goes down, a different animal comes out. This can be a most dangerous city at night.''

That is apparent to anyone who has watched ``LAPD: Life on the Beat,'' which WVBT began airing weeknights at 12:30 not long ago.

On a recent episode, LAPD officers found one young man dead and another barely clinging to life after a burst of gang warfare. Other officers responded to a call from a woman who said her niece had beaten her with a baseball bat.

``LAPD: Life on the Beat'' is ``Cops'' with palm trees. No surprise there. Karla Bair, the show's senior producer, worked on more than 200 episodes of ``Cops.''

``LAPD'' is a parade of hostage situations, landlord-tenant disputes, drive-by shootings and innocent people caught in the crossfire of gang-banging.

The show's producers, MGM Worldwide Television Group, and its publicists, Dish Communications, arranged for me to ride along with Sanchez.

He told me there are 513 gangs in Los Angeles. History tells the LAPD that 60 percent of the gang members will likely be dead or in prison by age 20. Sanchez says he has been drawn into ambush by gang members six times.

But never shot.

``I don't care about going home a hero,'' he said. ``I care about going home safe.''

To keep safe, Sanchez learned long ago to pay attention to the little things that tell him when criminals are at work on his shift in the North Hollywood Patrol Division. As we ride along the city's mean streets in his patrol car, he tells me about the little things.

He asks if I'd noticed broken glass on the sidewalk up ahead. I'd noticed.

Broken glass often means burglary, Sanchez says. Somebody is breaking into cars parked in that block, one by one, in a precise pattern. Sanchez gets on the radio and tells the officers who work with him to check it out.

He calls them. They call him. They stay in touch throughout the shift.

When the other officers call shift supervisor Sanchez on the radio - he's had 14 years on the force - they often ask his advice and counsel. Here comes a call now. There's a family squabble in progress.

A 12-year-old girl says her mother is beating her with a pool cue.

We proceed to the address to investigate. It is not the Los Angeles you see on the glitzy, glamorous shows produced by Aaron Spelling.

Nor is it the Los Angeles of the TV networks I see when I am in town to do interviews - the L.A. of the plush hotels, fancy buffets and parties where one minute I'm rubbing elbows with Jerry Seinfeld, the next minute I'm schmoozing with Heather Locklear.

The Los Angeles of the 12-year-old girl who's been hit with a pool cue is dirty and dilapidated, a neighborhood where there are no screens on the windows, where her parents sit and smoke cigarettes on furniture that is falling apart, telling their stories to the LAPD.

``I slapped her real good,'' the mother says. Sanchez asks one of the other officers to call the Department of Child Services to investigate what is obviously a case of child abuse.

Straighten up or I'm going to take your kids away from you, Sanchez tells the mother. Before leaving the scene, he has one more thing to say:

``Clean up this house.''

Then we are on the road again. Sanchez points to the street corners where the drug deals go down. He says it breaks his heart to see so many young people involved in drug dealing. The bad boys, the violent boys, he calls them.

``Tomorrow's cons,'' says Sanchez. How old are these cons of tomorrow? Twelve? Try 9, the officer says. Try 7 years old.

Because the North Hollywood Patrol Division is so large, it also embraces people who live the good life in fine houses. The richy rich, he calls them. His precinct has the richy rich, the poor, the homeless.

Any crime you can think of happens here, he says. Is it any wonder you see bars on the windows of so many homes in North Hollywood?

``The people in these homes are saying, `I'm locked up in my cage, and nobody will able to get me,''' says Sanchez.

He is as much good-will ambassador as he is a hard-nosed cop.

On the way back to division headquarters, he takes a detour - drives his black-and-white into a park where all is calm, where people are playing softball and having picnics, where there is no crime for the moment.

There is no crime, says Sanchez, because he is there to create a police presence, to make small talk, be cordial, reassure the people.

He talks to people and their pets. Nice man, Rick Sanchez.

When the sun goes down and Sgt. Rick Sanchez is not in the park, what then? You don't want to be there, he says.

``You don't want to put yourself in a situation to be a victim.''

It is the victims of crime, and the officers who come to their aid, you see on ``LAPD: Life on the Beat.'' With Rick Sanchez, I looked into the dark corners of a community that the visitors to Disneyland and the Hollywood Walk of Fame know nothing about.

Sanchez showed me what ``a most dangerous city'' Los Angeles can be. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MGM

Police work in Los Angeles runs the gamut from rescuing children to

curbing violence. You see it all up close on ``LAPD: Life on the

Beat.''

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