On behalf of the men and women of LAPD Operations Valley Bureau I would like to thank everyone in the community for their ongoing support and continuing partnerships. Operations Valley Bureau consists of eight LAPD Divisions including Foothill, Mission, North Hollywood, Devonshire, West Valley, Topanga, and Valley Traffic. I am assisted in my command by Commander Regina Scott and Commander Kris Pitcher.
Operations Valley Bureau recently completed training all Officers on deescalating confrontations with suspects and how to approach mentally ill persons. The goal was to take a fresh approach in training everyone to constitutionally police especially in light of recent national incident and events relating to police.
This is what we undertook by shutting down different commands while others covered for them.
•Building public trust by partnering with the community and recognizing your own implicit racial biases.
•Use of force and de-escalation techniques, including taking cover and creating distance from suspects to buy time to talk to them and call for back-up.
•How best to identify and approach mentally ill people.
•Basic laws of arrest, including reasonable suspicion and probable cause
Operations Valley Bureau also just held a very well attended Community Forum on Public Perceptions of Law Enforcement and will continue to engage the community on topic driven subject matters. The partnerships we forge with the community are necessary to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in the San Fernando Valley.