65-YEAR-OLD LAPD RECRUIT KICKED OUT.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writer

The LAPD's oldest recruit has been fired on allegations that he engaged in "inappropriate touching" of female recruits during self-defense and physical training, officials said Tuesday.

At 65, Dumas Robinson says he is the victim of age discrimination and he plans to appeal the dismissal.

"I feel terrible - I feel the reason they don't want me to graduate is because I was an embarrassment" because of the age issue, Robinson said.

After a career as a civil law investigator for the state, Robinson began academy training in 1995 to prove that men his age could do the work of a rookie cop.

A muscle pull cut short his training. Then, allegations from five female recruits during his comeback cut short his new career.

In three incidents in September, Robinson is charged with inappropriately touching officers despite being instructed not to by self-defense instructors and the officers involved, according to his notice of termination.

Robinson also was accused of misconduct for grabbing and shaking a recruit's hips and inappropriately touching the waistline of another during two summer runs.

He was relieved of duty with pay Sept. 20.

"To suggest that I would or could even do something like that under those circumstances is absurd," Robinson said. "From early on when I entered that academy, I was under scrutiny from day one because I was the oldest recruit."

Robinson had been assigned to home with pay for six months - in which he received roughly $17,000 - while the department investigated the complaints related to incidents from July to September.

His defense representative, David Winslow, said the charges of inappropriate advances are unfounded and that the whole case is a product of age discrimination.

"I am convinced there was nothing sexual about this, it was simply a misperception on the part of the female recruits," Winslow said, adding that their statements have been exploited to rid of the department of its oldest recruit.

"There have been public statements made by council members and other people of authority in the city regarding Dumas Robinson's age, and the fact that he should not have been hired because of his age."

"He maintains his innocence and he is deeply upset by the allegations," Winslow said.

Capt. Gary Brennan of the Los Angeles Police Department's Training Division dismissed allegations of discrimination leveled by Robinson.

"The reason he is terminated is because of the misconduct," he said.

"The allegations don't have anything to do with his ability to do the job, they have to do with his conduct."

Until 1992, the department barred the hiring of recruits over age 34.

The city dropped the age limitation just before a law enforcement exemption to federal age discrimination laws expired in 1993. City officials chose not to join other law enforcement agencies seeking a renewal of the exemption.

Robinson was hired about the same time 59-year-old rookie Edward Olivares was turning in his badge. Olivares was the oldest rookie to graduate from the academy.

With the cost of training each officer estimated at $100,000, the resignation of Olivares and the hiring of Robinson have caused some city officials to begin debating the LAPD's hiring policies at a time when attrition is a serious problem.

Brennan said he had no precise statistics on how many recruits over the age of 34 have joined the department since 1992.