Citizens Police Academy Weeks 11 and 12 -- Heliport, Ridealong and Role Playing

I got so busy that I fell behind on blog posts about Citizens Police Academy so I decided to post a brief recap of the last two classes. 

On April 10 (Week 11) we met at the Pasadena Police Department heliport, located midway between JPL and the Rose Bowl Stadium. We learned all about the Air Operations Section.

The video at the top of this post will give you details about Air Ops.

Surplus helicopters are donated by the U.S. military and are just shells when they are received. They become Pasadena police helicopters after a lot of mechanical and body work and a nice paint job.

We also learned about the K-9 program. Figo, a Belgian Malinois, is one of the Pasadena Police Department canine officers. He and his partner, Officer Steve Arcand, participate in patrol and narcotics operations. During a really interesting exercise, Figo successfully sniffed out some small, hidden boxes of narcotics.

The SWAT team drove the BearCat up to the heliport and told us about their operations. Officer Tai Wotherspoon is one of only two female members of the SWAT team.

Park safety and the gang unit rounded out week 11.

On April 9 I had my ridealong in a patrol car. I had been on patrol, paramedic and helicopter ridealongs when I was the Pasadena PIO; a patrol ridealong is required for everyone in the Citizens Police Academy class.

I rode with Officer Bill "Ship" Shipman. I knew him from his 12 years on the HOPE Team when I was the Pasadena PIO but hadn't seen him since I retired in 2012.

At 7:30 I sat in on the morning briefing.

Just before we left, my partner checked the equipment, weapons and systems in the patrol car, and I put on a bulletproof vest.

Then we headed out in the Midtown Service Area. Geographically it is the smallest area, but it includes Old Pasadena, the Playhouse District, South Lake and the Civic Center, so it is often the busiest service area.

Our time together included a couple of residential alarm calls...

...a trip back to the Civic Center to transport a prisoner from the Pasadena Jail to the courthouse across the street...

...a stop at the South Raymond Substation across from Central Park...

...and a call about a man trying to kick in the door of his estranged wife's apartment (I redacted the address and phone number below).

I stayed n the car for that one and watched as my partner walked up to the apartment complex, where another officer had arrived as well.

The time passed much more quickly than I anticipated. I really appreciated the opportunity to accompany Ship for the day.

On April 17 I was back at the Police Department for Week 12 of Citizens Police Academy -- the role-playing session.

Two to four of us at a time were selected to play the role of police officers in specific scenarios.

Three young people from the Police Explorer Program were brought in to play the role of suspects in the scenarios. Cpl. Glenn Thompson (left) introduced them and walked us through what to expect generally, without telling us what the specific scenarios would be.

Each class member assigned to role-play was given an orange faux gun.

In this scenario, a wife had physically attacked her husband shortly before a couple of "officers" arrived.

Other scenarios included people gambling in a park (one had a gun, as it turned out) and a vehicle stopped because of suspicious activity.

Retired Pasadena Police Lieutenant Rodney D. Wallace joined us, sitting in the back of the room. It was great to see him! I thought he was just stopping by for old time's sake; little did any of us know he would suddenly assume the role of a suspect who was drunk in public and refusing to obey "officers'" commands while at the same time overtly flirting with them..

All of these scenarios provided an opportunity for a hands-on learning experience during which we did our best to follow protocols. But at the end of the day, we're not trained police officers. There was constructive criticism about each of our scenarios, followed by sworn police officers demonstrating how each scenario would be handled on their watch.

This evening of role-playing really helped us gain insight into the often intense, daily challenges sworn officers face and the split-second decisions they sometimes have to make in the protection of life and property.

My favorite photo of the night:

The son of Officer Joe Reinbold, one of our co-facilitators, was there. Like father, like son!

See all of my blog posts labeled "Citizens Police Academy" by clicking here.

On April 24 we graduated! I'll write a separate post about our graduation evening in the next couple of days.

Citizens Police Academy Week 10 -- Patrol, HOPE Team, Reserves

The behaviors of Pasadena Police Department patrol officers are as far removed from the bumbling Keystone Cops as they can get, but it sure is fun to watch those silent film officers in action!

Last Thursday at our Citizens Police Academy class Lt. Vasken Gourdikian explained all the ins and outs of the Field Operations Division, which includes Patrol, K-9, HOPE Team and Park Safety. He was filling in for Commander Chris Russ, who oversees the division.

He explained that under the Police Department's One Officer, One Beat, One Year community policing model, each patrol officer is assigned a beat in a specific community service area for one year, then rotates to another one. This enables each officer to get to the know the neighborhoods and collaborate personally with residents and business owners to help solve issues.

He oversees officers in the Midtown service area. It's the smallest geographically, but don't be fooled: It's also the busiest because it includes Old Pasadena, the Playhouse District, South Lake and the Civic Center area.

In all the seven service areas combined, there are 82 patrol officers, two K-9 officers, two HOPE Team officers and five park safety officers.

Some officers, including K-9s, were at the National Night Out event I blogged about in 2010 when I was the Pasadena PIO. You can see that blog post here.

Lt. Gourdikian also spoke about other aspects of the Field Operations Division, including the Mobile Command Unit that can be at a crime scene or emergency incident in a flash and is used at regular Curbside Coffee and Chat events throughout Pasadena.

He introduced Officers Elgin Lee (left) and Domino Scott who work on the HOPE Team, which stands for Homeless Outreach and Psychiatric Evaluation.

Two registered nurses who specialize in psychiatric care work right along with them. Officer Lee has a master's degree in biology and Officer Scott has a master's in forensic psychology. She is also the negotiator during critical incidents that have a mental illness component.

They are the first responders to these types of incidents; patrol officers are the second responders.

After incidents, whether there has been a 5150 hold or not, Officers Scott and Lee and the RNs do follow-up checks to make sure the people are stable, taking medications, etc.

Passageways and Pacific Clinics are important partners in HOPE Team efforts, which also include working with homeless mentally ill people and providing leadership to the Pasadena Mental Health Advisory Committee.

Next we heard from Lt. Pete Hettema who spoke about reserve officers. He was a Pasadena reserve officer for 16 years while owning a business before joining the Pasadena Police Department as a sworn officer 22 years ago.

Reserve officers have varying levels of responsibility and the ability to wear Pasadena Police Department uniforms and carry firearms depending on the training and testing they have completed and the number of hours they have worked in the field with patrol officers.

They are volunteers, put in a minimum of 16 hours a month and get paid only for special duty such as working events at the Rose Bowl Stadium and working with the Old Pasadena detail.

Well, two more weeks to go at Citizens Police Academy and then we graduate. It has been such an interesting experience!

This coming Thursday we're going to the Pasadena Police Heliport to learn all about the Air Operations Division. I'll give you a full report.

In the meantime, here are all the Citizens Police Academy blog posts I've done to date.

Citizens Police Academy Week Nine -- Forensics and Traffic

I laughed all the way through this compilation of sunglasses moments with the CSI Miami character Horatio Caine played by David Caruso!

The crime scene investigations you see on CSI and other similar programs are 90 percent Hollywood and 10 percent realistic.

For one thing, real forensics professionals don't wear designer suits and skimpy dresses to crime scenes, nor do they drive hummers as seen on TV (I'd love to see the municipal budget that could justify that expense!)

Alex Padilla and Christina Fish (inset), who work in the Forensics Section of the Pasadena Police Department's Detectives Division, came to our Citizens Police Academy class last Thursday.

They explained to us that another big distinction between CSI-type TV shows and the real world is that forensics professionals handle much more than homicides. They gather and process crime scene evidence related to everything from burglaries to car break-ins to domestic violence cases.

Most forensics professionals everywhere are non-sworn. They collect DNA from weapons, determine ballistics angles, gather and process blood evidence, lift shoe and tire impressions, dust for fingerprints, handle fingerprint matching, create crime scene diagrams, write detailed reports, testify in court and much, much more.

By the way, matching fingerprints through a database takes way longer than the 10 seconds or so that you see on those TV shows; the reality is that it takes at least two days with required cross-checks by three other professionals. 

The Pasadena Police Department has an opening for a crime analyst if you know of somebody who's qualified.

Last week our class also learned all about the PD's Traffic Section from Officers Tony Carg (left) and Phil Klotz. 

They ride police motorcycles. When they were first introduced they were greeted by good-natured boos from the class; by the time they left, there was unanimous applause.

Their purpose on Pasadena streets is not just to penalize speeders, it's to change behaviors. Do you know that more people are killed in vehicle-related accidents in Pasadena than any other violence? 

Unsafe speed is the #1 cause of fatal collisions, and about half of those are alcohol related. That's why the Pasadena Police Department conducts DUI checkpoints from time to time. 

With 290 signalized intersections in town and a daily visiting workforce of 80,000 to 100,000 drivers adding to the regular local traffic, Carg and Klotz have a tremendous responsibility.

Texting and other distractions also cause accidents. I was rear-ended a couple of years ago at a stoplight at Lake and Walnut by a young woman who was texting instead of watching the road.

The PD is cracking down on this as well.

Pasadena's 12 motor officers train regularly and host competitions, called motorcycle rodeos, for other police agencies near the Rose Bowl Stadium. The next one, which is free and open to the public, is Thursday, June 5.

And of course they ride their rose-bedecked motorcycles in the annual Rose Parade.

This was such an informative class. Three more and then we graduate!

I shot the Citizens Police Academy photos; many thanks to the City of Pasadena, Pasadena Patch and Examiner.com for the others.

Citizens Police Academy Week Seven -- Firing Range

In this 1935 photo, Sgt. Bailey supervises firearms instruction with two female employees (not sworn officers) of the Pasadena Police Department at the firing range in Eaton Canyon.

Last Wednesday the Citizens Police Academy class spent the day at the same location. 

A few things have changed since then: 

• The firing range is indoors now 
• Women aren't encouraged to wear dresses, hats and heels 
• Body armor and ear and eye protection are a must now 
• That hand-on-the-hip-and-fire-with-the-other-hand technique is a thing of the past.

My selfie in body armor, which was quite heavy:

After about an hour of safety tips and explanations about what to expect, Don Amerman, the rangemaster, showed us the weapons we would be firing -- pistols, rifles and shotguns.

"Don't point your weapon toward anything 

you're not willing to destroy."

Then he and our Citizens Police Academy facilitators, officers Sean Dawkins and Joe Reinbold, provided one-on-one training. 

My target will never make babies again.

In other sessions that day we learned about weapons and tactics and trained with a simulator.

Chief Phillip Sanchez arrived during one of the breaks and chatted it up with Lt. Edward Calatayud.

Then he led a discussion about perception versus reality in many complaints against police officers, the process by which officer-involved shootings are investigated and the dangers police officers face every day on the job.

"My officers wake up every day wanting to do 

the most professional and profound job possible 

for the people of Pasadena."

It was a great day and we all learned so much. 

This 12-week Citizens Police Academy, with classroom and field training, continues to be a great experience as we get an inside look at law enforcement in Pasadena.

I'm holding out hope that the official uniform of the rangemaster will revert back to Sgt. Bailey's traditional boots and jodhpurs. I'm guessing Chief Sanchez might be on board with that!

Many thanks to classmate Karol Franks for the photos of Chief Sanchez (my phone battery was too low by then); I found the historic photo here.

Citizens Police Academy Week Five -- Criminal Investigations Division (Part II)

Last week I reported on Part I of our Citizens Police Academy class about the Criminal Investigations Division, which was all about crimes against persons.

On Thursday we had Part II, which was about crimes against property.

See the bad guy in the photo above? He's entering through a doorway into the master bedroom of a Pasadena home. 

Allegedly.

The bad guy had just gotten out of prison. The owners had been hit before so they had video surveillance equipment installed. 

Alonzo Wilkins, a detective in the Residential Burglary Unit, showed the video to other detectives and one of them recognized the bad guy, who was traced to a local hotel relatively quickly (stupid criminal syndrome). It's possible he could get three additional years on top of whatever the sentence may be because there were people in the house (in fact, we could hear one person snoring in the surveillance video).

Detective Wilkins:

Do you know the Pasadena Police Department will send someone to your home to conduct a courtesy home security check? They'll take a look at your windows, doors and other parts of your home and property and give you tips for reducing your risk of burglary. Call (626) 744-4551.

Detective Wilkins explained the difference between burglary and robbery: A burglar enters a building with the intent of stealing something; a robber uses force or fear to take something from a person.

After Part II, we learned all about a couple of task forces.

I'll explain in a minute why I cropped out this person's face.

There are two sworn Pasadena police officers who serve on the elite Fugitive Apprehension Task Force for this region, made up of sworn law enforcement officers with the U.S. Marshals Service, Secret Service and municipal and county police agencies. 

What is a fugitive? In this case it's a violent offender with an arrest warrant who has fled the jurisdiction where the crime took place or is hiding within the jurisdiction.

Congress acted quickly after 9/11 to establish 80 task forces across the U.S. so violent fugitives from justice can be apprehended as a result of these team efforts. The task forces collectively brought in 100,000 violent fugitives last year alone.

One of the Pasadena officers with this region's task force spoke to us, but I'm not using his name or showing his face because I'm not sure I'm allowed. (If someone from PD tells me otherwise, I'll include that info.)

Suffice it to say the best of the best risk their lives to hunt down the worst of the worst so the citizens they are sworn to protect and serve will be safer.

The City of Pasadena pays for all costs of the Pasadena officers on the task force with the exception of vehicles and overtime, which are funded by the U.S. Marshals Service.

The other one we learned about is the West San Gabriel Valley Anti-Crime Task Force (that's a PowerPoint screen above; I'm not sure what the wolves represent). 

Based out of the Arcadia Police Department and supervised by Sgt. Christopher Kirby of the Pasadena Police Department, the task force focuses primarily on compliance of AB 109 -- Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment plan implemented in 2011 as a way to comply with a federal court order to reduce California's prison population by shifting the monitoring and housing responsibility of lower-level offenders from the state to local counties.

This task force is made up of sworn officers with police departments in Arcadia, El Monte, Monrovia, Monterey Park, Pasadena and South Pasadena. They are able to pool resources to apprehend people on parole or probation who have violated the terms of their release from prison. They are usually high-risk and at-large. The State of California provides some of the funding.

Here's Sgt. Kirby, who heads up the task force:

The task force also includes an armed officer of the County of Los Angeles Probation Department.

Before we left class for the night, we lined up to schedule ridealongs in patrol cars. Mine will be on April 9.

Citizens Police Academy continues tomorrow evening with the Counter-Terrorism Unit, event planning and professional standards.

Citizens Police Academy Week Four -- Criminal Investigations Division (Part I)

Some undercover cops spoke to us last Thursday at our Citizens Police Academy class.

For obvious reasons I didn't take any photos of them, but suffice it to say they put themselves potentially in harm's way regularly as they pose as people interested in purchasing illegal goods and services and investigate and resolve vice-related crimes including prostitution, illegal drugs and more. 

Those glamorous vice cops in TV shows like Miami Vice are fictional characters who drive fast cars, wear expensive clothes, have eye candy on their arms and get the bad guys within the course of an hour. 

Our real deals in Pasadena sometimes spend weeks and months on stakeouts -- work that can be very tedious yet is absolutely necessary if they are going to get the bad guys within...well, certainly not an hour.

And then there's the paperwork that is critical for documenting and building the most compelling, undeniable cases possible for the District Attorney's Office to take to court. That part of the job is never included in "Miami Vice."

Vice, technically known as the Special Investigations Unit, is part of the Pasadena Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division. This division covers such a wide range of units that this portion of our class is being broken up into two parts. (We'll have Part II tonight.)

Commander John Perez oversees the Criminal Investigations Division. I've known John for many years and have always been so impressed by his expertise as well as his friendly, approachable nature.

Everything covered Thursday night was under the Criminal Investigations Division's Crimes Against Persons Section. Detectives informed us about their jobs handling homicides, assaults, robberies and financial crimes such as identity theft.

Lt. Terysa Rojas heads up the Crimes Against Persons Section.

Other detectives in the Crimes Against Persons Section told us about domestic violence, elder abuse and crimes against children.

Believe me, it was all very sobering. 

Tonight we'll learn all about the Crimes Against Properties Section as well as the Fugitive Apprehension Unit.

Then I'll tell you all about it.

Citizens Police Academy Week Three -- Disaster Preparedness and Community Services

Lisa Derderian, emergency management coordinator and public information officer for the Pasadena Fire Department, was one of the presenters at the Citizens Police Academy class last Thursday.

She said she missed me so much in my capacity as the Pasadena PIO that she wanted to present me with my very own fire helmet.

Of course, this means I have to flash back to the nasty, bitter, bloody rivalry we once had.

So once again (as if we would ever tire of it!) here are the photos of Lisa in her Fire PIO hat and me in my makeshift City PIO hat that was born* out of my pure, unbridled jealousy:

Who had the better PIO helmet? I'll let you be the judge!

And now, back to our class.

Lisa explained everything that should be placed in our emergency kits for disaster preparedness and gave us additional tips for what to expect immediately after a major earthquake.

At home I have one of the red backpacks you see on the podium.

After Lisa's presentation, Sgt. Bobby Lomeli (left) and Officer Christian Allen of the Pasadena Police Department explained some of the programs of the Neighborhood Services Unit of the Community Services Section. 

One of those programs is the Police Activities League (PAL), which provides positive alternatives to children and teens ages 9 to 17, including mentoring, tutoring, recreation and field trips. 

The annual Golden Badge Awards, which helps fund the PAL program, is coming up May 17, so please (please!) buy a ticket or make a donation. 

Among the many other programs of the Neighborhood Services Unit are the Junior Public Safety Academy for kids who want to become police officers and firefighters someday; the Summer Leadership Conference for middle school students who are emerging leaders; the Kids Safety Academy that teaches children everything from stranger danger to bicycle safety... 

...and the Youth Accountability Board that helps first-time offenders reflect on their actions and move toward a pathway of success by making amends and attending counseling with their families.

Officers and other staff in the Neighborhood Services Unit also make presentations to the nearly 500 Neighborhood Watch groups in Pasadena, conduct voluntary property inspections to look for telltale signs that could attract burglars, organize Pasadena's annual National Night Out, make presentations at schools throughout Pasadena and so much more.

Speaking of schools, Lt. Edward Calatayud (right), who heads up the Community Services Section, spoke to our class about the Safe Schools Team.

Funded by PUSD, the Safe Schools Team consists of one sergeant and six officers of the Pasadena Police Department (including Officer Sahak Nersesyan on the left) who maintain a safe and secure environment for students in high schools and middle schools in Pasadena. The team combines community outreach with prevention, intervention and enforcement while establishing relationships with students and creating partnerships with school administrators.   

As the Pasadena PIO for 21 years, I spent my fair share of time at the Pasadena Police Department and at PD events and incidents. I learned a lot over the course of those two decades but I certainly don't know it all. I'm finding there's so much more to take in!

I feel so fortunate to be in the Citizens Police Academy. Our next class is tomorrow night and I'll blog about in the next few days.

* The mighty Zack Stromberg created my PIO hat at my request. 

I took the photos from last week's class. Many thanks to Pasadena Star-News, Zack Stromberg and Pasadena Police Foundation for the others.