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PAL director, a good friend to community, is ready to retire
By JON WILSON © St. Petersburg Times, published April 8, 2001 ST. PETERSBURG -- Jerry Lee Babcock can look out his office window and see where the kids started learning how to box more than 40 years ago. It's a nice touch for the guy who watched over the Police Athletic League's move to its current quarters on 16th Street N. That's where the youth organization took its first, very tentative steps in 1960, and where it returned in 1996 after using a series of other buildings through the years. Babcock retires this month after 30 years with the St. Petersburg police department, 13 as the PAL director. "Ours is one of the most respected PALs in the country. We rate right up there with New York City. And Jerry's the reason why," said PAL board president Lee Warnock. Babcock, 54, plans to pursue a new career. Using ground-penetrating radar, he'll help geologists find buried objects. But the police officer who used to take off his gun belt to play basketball with kids on gritty, outdoor courts isn't leaving the PAL entirely. Babcock, who is married and has three grown children, plans to be involved in helping the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office set up a PAL in Lealman, an unincorporated area just north of St. Petersburg. As in many cities, the St. Petersburg PAL began as a boxing program for boys. It expanded to other sports, and is now a many-faceted program for both boys and girls. It runs a summer day camp, for example. And during the school year, attracting about 100 youngsters a day, the PAL has an after-school program with as much emphasis on education as athletics. Teachers volunteer to help with homework. Computer instruction and tutoring are big elements. Honor roll report cards get posted on the bulletin board. "Parents just love that," Warnock said. Babcock spent his early years on the police force as a street cop, but even then he was making friends with youngsters. He got to know people. Sometimes he'd help them out. Sometimes all that came back in good ways. One night, for example, Babcock saw a Farm Store robbery on Central Avenue. He chased a carful of suspects across town, then south around 16th Street S and Fifth Avenue, where Interstate 275 crosses. There was a construction project going on, and Babcock remembers the suspects' car skidding in dirt, stopping against one of overpass's concrete supports. Babcock thought he would ram the two-door car, pinning it against the pole. But he missed the pin, smacking it too far toward the rear, leaving the doors free. One passenger got out, coming toward Babcock with a gun. Babcock was tangled in his seat belt, unable to reach his own weapon. "I knew I was going to die," he said. But another person got out of the suspect's car, spied Babcock and stopped his companion. " "Don't mess with him. That's Jerry,' " Babcock recalled the second man as saying. The suspects took off. But there's a kicker: All of them, including the would-be gunman, later turned themselves in at the police station. Before he came to the PAL, most of Babcock's career was spent as a child abuse investigator. His first case involved a baby with a broken arm and stomach bruises. He lost the case in court, and a furious motivation was born. "I learned not to leave anything untouched in a child abuse case. I actually became obsessed. I got criticized for letting my cases pile up. But I wanted to get the convictions." He estimates he investigated thousands of cases, some especially brutal. Others were odd, such as the mother who was diagnosed with Munchausen's syndrome, a mental illness in which parents abuse their children to get attention. Babcock moved to the PAL job in 1988. In 1991, he was named Florida's Law Enforcement Officer of the Year, and he was quoted in a newspaper story as saying he was ready for the change three years earlier. "I decided I'd seen enough dead babies," he said then, after waiting for a child to die so he could arrest the father, then seeing another child struck by a car. During Babcock's tenure, the PAL moved from a cramped headquarters on Fifth Avenue N to its location at 1450 16th St. N, where the program started. It has produced national champion baseball teams. It has more than doubled programs, staff and membership. Meanwhile, utilities and insurance have tripled, Babcock said. "Income has remained the same." The PAL operates on a $400,000 annual budget, most of its money coming from contributions. It has now forged a partnership with the St. Petersburg Housing Authority and the Southside Boys and Girls Club. Two weeks ago there was a state PAL basketball tournament at the old Jordan Park gymnasium. Midnight basketball may be in the future. "Everything at PAL has been positive. I've seen advancement, I've seen expansion. I feel very, very comfortable with what PAL has become," Babcock said.
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