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The Los Angeles Community Policing forum
Less than five months ago, Los Angeles Community Policing was born,
principally because repeated attempts to coordinate the 18 Division
Community-Police Advisory Boards (C-PABs) were thwarted by the argument
that the Department needed to maintain "confidentiality."
Things are getting better now, and we've just become a non
profit organization ... but here's the history:
Over time we'd approached any number of individuals, pursuing a contact
list, or a partial contact list, that could be used C-PAB-to-C-PAB
to find out what was going on from the communities' point of view
at each of the 18 LAPD local Divisions.
LAPD officers, including command officers, government officials, and
representatives from the C-PABs themselves all attempted on our behalf
to ascertain which community members were involved at C-PABs across
the City, and failing this to explain a policy that, to us, defies
understanding.
Not that we don't see the wisdom of a reluctance to release willy-nilly
a complete list of LAPD community policing activists without first
gaining their permission. We do.
But all these requests were summarily stonewalled out of hand.
There was never a response from Parker Center that any part of this
was a good idea. Worse still, the suggestion of the possibility that
an individual or two could be found at each Community-Police Advisory
Board who would voluntarily allow their name to be shared intra-Board
was not even considered worthy of discussion.
You see, it was explained, this was "policy", meaning it seems that
under the current leadership "policy is policy" and no community input
over policy is required.
This rush to protect us from ourselves seems completely contradictory
to the idea of certain basic American freedoms … you know, "little
things," like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of
Access to Information.
Oh yes, and let's not forget a little peculiarly American concept
known as "civilian oversight."
Thus the forum at Los Angeles Community Policing, and this website,
were born.
Getting ourselves together
This is a grassroots effort. We began to announcing its existence
only recently, and the results from our outreach have been enthusiastic,
and very positive ... overwhelmingly so ...
Under the section "C-PAB Contacts" individuals can voluntarily
self-reveal their names and phone numbers so that we can find each
other.
The point is, there are many of us community members who are willing
to have such information in the public forum, because we understand
it facilitates our ability to reach out, to share, and to network
... but at LACP.org we know this should always be voluntary.
And now the C-PABs and SLOs can send us whatever they want us to post.
There are places on the site to do this already, with areas broken
out by LAPD Division. Look under the sections entitled "C-PAB
News" and SLO News".
In addition, we desire articles from others, inside the C-PAB system
or not, which are related to community based policing, or community
government.
Beyond that, we've only just scratched the surface of what can be
done locally.
But at LACP we believe a robust and dynamic partnership between City
officials and the residents they serve can only result in a relationship
where trust and cooperation spell a win-win situation for all of Los
Angeles.
We've begun to accept invitations to visit the various C-PAB meetings
to talk about the forum specifically, and the value of community participation
in general. If we've not yet visited your area, please feel free to
ask for a short presentation.
As time goes on, we'll be happy to visit a variety of other "community
government" type group meetings, too, including Neighborhood Councils,
because we're trying to let everyone know that LACP.org is THEIR
site, not ours.
Tell
everyone what you're doing
As time goes on LACP.org will feature unusual and interesting things
that are being done around the City of Los Angeles by people involved
in community based policing.
There are many individuals, groups and organizations with ongoing
projects or special events are not a part of the "official"
LAPD structure, although they may be supported and even facilitated
by LAPD and Community Policing activists.
This is an invitation for YOU to be included.
If you wish to write an article describing your program and what
you do,
by all means, please feel free to send it in.
Or we'll be happy to create a link directly to your own group's
website if you have one ...
If there's enough input of this type, maybe we'll eventually end
up dividing the site into any number of unique categories ... that's
yet to be seen.
But
this is YOUR website, your "Forum for All". So this will
be what you make it.
Get busy! Send in your stuff!
We are here to serve you. The Los Angeles Community Policing forum
will become whatever the community makes of it.
Yours in service,
Bill Murray
PS: Oh,
and we thank you for your supporting your LAPD Officers.
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