THE MAX FACTOR; RESERVE COP BAD NEWS FOR L.A.'S MOST WANTED.

Byline: Peter Hartlaub Daily News Staff Writer

Put Sam Spade, Frank Serpico and Andy Sipowicz in the same precinct. Throw in Spider-Man for good measure.

They still haven't caught as many bad guys as Max Kerstein.

With no gun, no badge and two bad knees, the 74-year-old doesn't look like a supercop. But as a veteran reserve officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, he's used databases and his own fingerprinting skills to find scores of murderers, rapists and other criminals who might otherwise walk out the station-house door with a slap on the wrist.

Los Angeles police Capt. Alan Kerstein is no relation to the reservist but calls him ``Uncle Max'' anyway.

``I suspect that Max personally has located more wanted suspects than anyone in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department,'' Alan Kerstein says. ``He has the energy of a patrol officer and the perseverance of a detective.''

Since 1982, Max Kerstein has found more than 1,200 fugitives. He works with the captain in the Pacific Division near Venice and also frequents the Wilshire, Rampart and Van Nuys divisions.

``It's just something I do to be active,'' he says. ``Here I am a little civilian, and I've been embraced by the Los Angeles Police Department to help fight crime.''

After an arrest, Kerstein looks for a suspect's ``hidden'' criminal histories in local, state and federal databases. Most suspects who come in during his shift are facing misdemeanors.

``Sleeping on the beach, urinating in public - you name it,'' he says.

Kerstein checks them all out, looking for felony arrest warrants in other jurisdictions.

In a recent case, Pacific Division police collared a man trying to sneak a gun in a picture frame onto a plane. Kerstein ran his Social Security number through FBI databases and found that the feds wanted him for contraband smuggling.

The reserve officer says he's found murderers, rapists and thieves - most of the time after they were arrested for a relatively minor offense.

He remembers one man who was in the station house to protest a warrant for three traffic tickets.

``He was screaming at the top of his lungs that they weren't his,'' Kerstein says.

Kerstein found out that the warrants indeed belonged to another man but discovered the complainant had three felony warrants for burglary tucked away in a state database. Straight to jail. No bail.

``Boy, he clammed up after that,'' Kerstein says.

Typing away in the Pacific Division jail house, Kerstein works on a 17-year-old computer that looks like it came out of Fred Flintstone's living room. While the monitor and keyboard are primitive, the computer can access a wealth of information on criminal histories, as long as the user knows where to look.

Kerstein also is a fingerprinting expert. He can match a suspect's fingerprints to the numerical codes police use without a computer.

``I come in to play chess,'' Kerstein says. ``It's them against me.''

Like a lot of reserve officers, a personal tragedy was Kerstein's call to duty.

In 1974, the secretary at his publishing business was murdered, he says, ``for a goddamned purse with $2 in it.''

``It was a motivation to me,'' Kerstein says. ``If there's ever anything I can do to serve my community, I'll do it.''

A few years later he heard a radio report from then-Police Chief Daryl Gates, asking for volunteers to help sort through records. After a few months shuffling papers, he carved out his own niche on the police computers.

Almost 20 years later, he trains incoming officers on how to use the system.

But don't ask Kerstein to set the clock on your VCR. Don't ask him to lead you through the Internet, either. When it comes to computers outside the LAPD, he's like a cave man who's been frozen in a glacier.

``I wouldn't know Microsoft from Windows,'' Kerstein says. ``But I know how to run these computers.''

His captain says Kerstein is proof that anyone in the community can offer something valuable to the department if they just come in and try.

``It's his personal level of curiosity that makes him so good,'' Alan Kerstein says. ``I wish I had 50 like him - just give them different last names.''

Los Angeles police Lt. John Desmond, in charge of the city's reserves, said the program has been around since the 1940s - when volunteers replaced thousands of police officers who went to serve in World War II.

The city has 813 men and women in the program, including 204 specialist reserve officers. Specialists include photographers, veterinarians and computer experts like Max Kerstein.

``We hire our personnel to be police officers,'' Desmond says. ``Max provides a service that the department doesn't have the money to replicate and probably couldn't replicate.''

While the reserve ``line officers'' who patrol the streets can't be older than 50, specialists don't have an age limit.

Kerstein spends 10 to 15 hours per week working for the LAPD and makes all of $15 per month. Line officers make $50 - the same amount Kerstein says he was paid when he served his country during World War II.

Fellow reserve Officer Victor Ruben calls Kerstein the ``Max Factor.''

``When one talks about community policing, he exemplifies the impact ordinary citizens can have (on) crime in our city,'' Ruben says.

Kerstein repeatedly tries to spread credit among his colleagues in the reserves. He says none of his colleagues are helping the LAPD for the money, the fame or the occasional pat on the back.

``It's not so much for the recognition. I have my share of certificates and trophies,'' he says. ``What I want to do is keep these criminals out of my back yard. I live around here.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) LAPD reserve Officer Max Kerstein, above, uses a jeweler's loupe to check fingerprints that help him identify criminals. Kerstein uses fingerprint files, left, and computer databases in his search.

David R. Crane/Daily News