Larry & Jean Harris

Larry and Jean Harris are the epitome of both civic mindedness and love. They have been married for 55 years this year. The Newport Beach Police Department was able to take advantage of their civic mindedness and skills as Reserve Police Officers for 15 and 17 years respectively. Other agencies were able to take advantage of their volunteerism for a total combined career of 59 years in law enforcement.

Larry Harris was born in Mattoon, Illinois in 1928 and was an only child. He explained that his strong sense of right and wrong came from the fact that, “My dad had a ‘nice’ leather belt!” Growing up watching his dad weather the depression meagerly but with dignity, when so many others couldn’t, might have been the source of his dedication to the community.

He met Jean while at Pasadena City College where he studied and later taught drafting as a special program for Douglas Aircraft. Larry started as a $1.25/hr draftsman and ended his engineering career as the Chief of Design and Support Engineering at Douglas. In 1957, he bought a house in Newport Beach for just over $19,250 where he lives with Jean to this day.

In 1960, he started his career in law enforcement as a Deputy Reserve Officer for the California Department of Fish and Game. He rose to the rank of Captain in Marine Patrol at Terminal Island before the program was disbanded by Governor Pat Brown in 1968. That same year, an article in the Daily Pilot drew him to the Reserve Police Officer Program at NBPD.

He remembers his first night on patrol as an eye opener. It was Easter Week and his assigned partner was Dave Doum. For those of us that remember Davey, it is no surprise that on the first call to a wild party of 250 drunk teenagers, Davey ‘gracefully’ made his way to the living room, stood up on the coffee table, and began giving loud orders. And? yes they did live to see another day!

After several years, he became the range master at the new police building. Larry had always been an aficionado of handguns and had developed an extensive resume of experience and training in firearms. Originally, we had to purchase our own weapons and it was Larry that we could depend on to keep them working smoothly. Thank you from an amateur!

In 1983, he started with the Orange County Sheriffs as their armorer and shotgun instructor. The draw of over 1,500 guns of various types and calibers to ‘play with’ was too much to resist. At one point, his conscientious insistence on perfection almost brought him close to disfavor with the boss. True to his principles, he failed the Sherriff’s

wife in the basic shotgun class? twice! His tenacity and abilities as an instructor finally won out, and he said she became one of his best students. We all start out slowly sometimes.

Larry developed a second passion while at the OC Sheriffs? bloodhounds. He became an expert in that field too. He used his dogs for the Sherriff’s Department and several other agencies around the county. He conducted several searches in murder cases that resulted in convictions that were in part due to his expertise using the dogs for tracking and identifying suspects. He also has traveled to the FBI Headquarters at Quantico to demonstrate the effectiveness of Bloodhounds. He even holds a patent for a device for maintaining scent evidence for court purposes.

In 1993, he briefly retired from agency affiliated police work. He still used his dogs for assisting police when they needed his services, but a lack of insurance induced him to begin working again, still as a volunteer, for the Irvine Police Department as a nationally known tracker. In 2005, after 42 years of “highly paid” police volunteer service, he retired.

Jean Harris was born in South Pasadena in 1934. She met Larry at a fraternity/sorority meeting. Even though she refused the ride home that Larry offered her, she wakened her mother when she got home to tell her about this perfect man she met with the most beautiful blues eyes. The rest is history.

While she was raising their two boys (now 52 and 49 years old) Jean volunteered as a “Pink Lady” at Hoag Hospital. She wanted to widen her perspective and learn about people while serving the community. The emergency room was a great school but not good enough to resist Lt. Don Picker’s wily plea for her to join the Newport Beach Police as a reserve like her husband. Even though she knew she was the ‘token female’ she knew she could greatly contribute. That she did from 1976 to 1993 assisting in many duties ranging from searching females to serving many hours in detectives. After 1983 when Larry started working for the Orange County Sheriffs, nightly conversations at the Harris house sounded like the UCLA/USC rivalry (only the argument was over which department was better). Newport, of course!

After 59 years of volunteer service, they are still not done volunteering. They are training their Havanese breed dog for animal therapy with the elderly and handicapped.

Congratulations and many thanks, Larry and Jean.

April 2, 2008