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closeWARNER ROBINS — Santa Claus really does know whether you’ve been naughty or nice.
Just ask 64-year-old John Louth, a retired electrical engineer and a member of the Santa Patrol.
The Santa Patrol in Warner Robins is a group of amateur radio operators who work with police and 911 dispatchers to offer extra sets of eyes and ears to law enforcement.
“Santa Claus is watching you,” Louth said jokingly.
The small patrol of 15 spreads out and sets up mostly in a variety of store parking lots with their radios, monitoring their surroundings and looking for suspicious activity during the holiday season.
“We don’t wear disguises or lean up on posts or anything,” Louth said.
Most members simply sit in their vehicles and watch. Most members look like a typical husband waiting on his wife to come out of the store, Louth said.
Other members are more visible, such as Terry Teal, who joined the patrol three years ago. He sometimes walks through the parking lots with his hand-held radio. He said being seen can serve as a deterrent.
The Santa Patrol looks for people who appear to be following shoppers out to their cars or folks going through parking lots peering into car windows.
One of the group’s members is stationed at the Houston County 911 Center, where the sheriff’s office has a desk set up for the Santa Patrol. Those on patrol will radio in to the member at the center, and that person shares the findings with a 911 operator. The 911 operators and police decide whether to send out a police officer.
“We never get involved,” Louth said. “We observe.”
The Santa Patrol has had some successes.
Louth recalled one encounter in which a patrol member called in a suspicious fellow who was coming out to his car, pulling packages out from under his coat and putting them into the trunk of his car.
“Most people don’t carry their packages under their coats.”
The Santa Patrol helped police catch a shoplifter that day, he said.
Teal recalled an incident last year in which a man was following shoppers out to their cars.
The suspicious activity was called in, a police officer was dispatched and the man was found to have on him tools used to break into vehicles, Teal said.
Also last year, one patrol member was the first to come across and call in a wreck caused by a deer at Houston County Lake Road and Collins Avenue.
But most nights aren’t glamorous or exciting. Patrol members carry jumper cables in their cars, always ready to lend a helping hand to a stranded motorist, Teal said.
Often, members will escort employees to their cars after stores close.
“It’s like a reward at the end of the evening,” said Teal, 45. “It makes me feel like I’m doing a community service.”
When the evening patrol has ended, members often gather at a coffee shop and swap tales.
Kevin King of Warner Robins is new to the Santa Patrol. He first heard about the group last holiday season when he picked up the patrol’s radio traffic on his scanner.
King credited his entry into the world of amateur radio for enabling him to overcome shyness.
The Santa Patrol has been in action close to three decades. The first group set up shop back in 1981 or ’82 at the Warner Robins Police Department on Young Avenue, back in the day where there was no 911 and only a sole dispatcher for the city police, Teal said.
No one in the group knows if there’s been a patrol every year, Louth said. Interest in amateur radios has ebbed and flowed over the years, with advances in technology such as cell phones, he said.
Most people today are likely more aware of their surroundings and potential dangers of crimes of opportunity that the season presents, Warner Robins police Maj. John Wagner said. And that has helped curb crime.
Nonetheless, the Santa Patrol remains a valuable tool in fighting crime, Wagner said. The same folks also use their radio skills and equipment to help out with staging entrants at the annual Christmas parade and reuniting children in the parade with parents when it’s over.
“Wherever we have extra ears and eyes, it’s a help to us,” Wagner said.
Staff photographer Grant Blankenship contributed to this article. To contact writer Becky Purser, call 923-3109, extension 243.
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