Family

Last Thursday, I had a virtual site visit from the Glendale, CA Police Department. The Crime Analysis Unit and two commanding officers spent a couple hours with me, using gotomeeting for a web conference. Glendale is working on improving their information flow and systems, and somehow came up with our name as a good place to check out. In preparation for the meeting, I had crawled all over their website, and read their strategic plan. A few parts of the plan resonated particularly well with me:

• The Glendale Police Department will explore the feasibility of employing an Area Command Model.


• We will be on the forefront of emerging crimes by identifying enforcement and prevention strategies to address emerging crime trends.


• The Department will identify and implement crime analysis software and mapping tools to provide police management and employees with real-time access to crime data to efficiently allocate and deploy resources.


• The Department will integrate new technologies and provide Comstat type crime information to Department members.

They were about to visit the right place to see those principals in action, in a City where they have matured for many years. It was a great discussion, and I got the feeling that we really helped them with some ideas and concepts, some of which were so downright practical that they could be implemented the next day.

While visiting their website I found something that really struck a cord with me. I grabbed the link to this video, and emailed it to a few people here at LPD. It’s a powerful statement about one of the things that makes this career so fulfilling. Nicely done, Glendale PD!