Guns drawn and braced for a shootout, three officers wearing bulletproof vests emblazoned with yellow "POLICE" insignia burst into an apartment in northeast Houston one night last week. Shouting commands to their quarry to surrender or be shot, the officers flushed out Samuel Reyna, 50, a fugitive cocaine and heroine trafficker, as he hid in a bedroom closet with $3,200 in his pocket. They handcuffed the suspect, drove him to their headquarters for booking on parole violation charges and then transported him to the Harris County jail. Classified as a habitual offender, Reyna faces life imprisonment under Texas law. The arrest was hardly remarkable for Houston, or any other U.S. city, for that matter. "Just another night. Pretty routine," said Lt. Glenn Ellis. Except that Ellis is a civilian who during the day works for a property management firm and who receives no pay for the 100 hours a month he volunteers to the 6th Precinct Constable's Department of Harris County, which encompasses Houston.

The 6th Precinct is the poorest and most crime-ridden of the county's eight precincts; its population is 65 percent Hispanic and 25 percent black. All but 13 of the 210 constable's deputies of the 6th Precinct are unpaid civilian volunteers, even though they are uniformed, armed, trained at police schools and have essentially the same powers as any other law enforcement officer in Texas.

Elsewhere, urban communities are turning to other unconventional forms of crime fighting, including curfews for juveniles, the temporary detention of truants, offering police low-interest mortgages on inner-city houses, giving officers patrol cars to take home at night and using unarmed, civilian volunteers with cellular phones to patrol dangerous areas and report suspicious activity to the police. And following a visit to Washington yesterday to meet with President Clinton and lobby congressional leaders on the omnibus crime bill, a group of mayors and police chiefs from 100 cities said they plan to call for even more innovative community-based efforts to put more police closer to crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Although derided by critics as vigilantes or a modern version of a Wild West posse, the deputized citizen corps has demonstrated its usefulness and cost-effectiveness, according to the precinct's elected constable, Victor Trevino. He estimates that since January 1991, his deputies have volunteered nearly 116,000 hours of duty, the equivalent of more than $2.5 million.

To be accredited as a constable's deputy, a volunteer must graduate from a police training after at least 600 hours of classroom work,pass a state examination and be certified as a law enforcement officer by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education, said Trevino, a 10-year veteran of the Houston police force. He said members of his force, who are covered by county liability insurance when performing official duties, have never had a lawsuit filed against them. "These are no Rambos running around out of control. They are as qualified and competent as any police officer in the state," Trevino said. He said many deputies volunteer to gain field experience and enhance their resumes while waiting for paid positions to open in other police departments. "Of course, given a choice, I'd rather have them paid and full time. But I've got to do with what I'm given," said Trevino, who runs his force on a shoestring $1 million annual budget provided by the county.

The force's best-known unit is the 20-man Zebra Squad, which in the last three years has arrested nearly 2,000 felons wanted for parole violations. Conducting searches at parolees' last known addresses four nights a week on the basis of warrants it receives from the Texas Department of Pardons and Paroles, the Zebra Squad operates throughout Harris County, relieving the Houston Police Department and county Sheriff's Department of costly and time-consuming duty.

Briefing six Zebra Squad members before conducting four house searches one night last week, Ellis, the squad's chief, alluded to the dangers posed by criminals fearful of being returned to prison. "I want everybody to come back here alive, so use extreme caution, gentlemen. No parole violation is worth a life as far as I'm concerned. If something goes wrong and you hear shots fired inside, do not enter the house. I don't want anyone shot by friendly fire," said Ellis, a 14-year veteran of the sheriff's department. Of the four houses searched that night, Reyna's was the only one to yield a parole violator, average for a night's work, Ellis said. The remaining suspects were in hiding, which the squad leader said was increasingly common because of the Zebra Squad's growing reputation. When asked if he had heard of the Zebra Squad, Reyna replied, "Oh yeah... . Is that who these guys are?"

Rivaling the Zebra Squad for notoriety in the community is the 85-member anti-truancy detail, called the Absent Students Assistance Program (ASAP), which conducts nightly visits to homes of students reported absent from two local junior high schools with high rates of absenteeism. "Imagine the impact of having a uniformed deputy arrive on your doorstep to ask why your kid wasn't in school that day," said Trevino, noting that often parents are unaware their child has cut class. The constable produced records showing that average daily absences at the two schools in the first 117 days of this school year had been reduced by 187 from the same period last year, saving $462,000 in state aid that would not otherwise have been paid on the basis of total daily attendance.