LOS ANGELES, CA – Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers within the newly formed Community Safety Partnership Bureau and Los Angeles Residents from South Park and Harvard Park participated in multiple virtual Game Changer events to devise solutions to bring about improved relations. LAPD Foundation sponsored the Los Angeles-based, California POST-accredited law enforcement/community relations program for the first time. Additional events are scheduled for May, 2021.
COVID-19 stay-at-home measures have prevented the model from conducting in-person operations, which feature training members of law enforcement and community residents communicating through moderated focus groups that typically occur three hours before the start of collegiate and professional sporting events.
Although LAPD officers and LA residents have participated in Game Changer training events in the past, this agreement marks the first time both groups were formally and intentionally united to be trained together. By participating in Game Changer training, officers received continuing education units in Community Policing and Interpersonal Communication from the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the body that sets training standards for over 600 law enforcement agencies throughout the state of California. The data proven model is designed to bring about changes in perception, leading to changes in behavior, leading to an increase in peaceful outcomes.
“This partnership with CSP was inevitable. We both recognize that there’s a problem between law enforcement and many communities that they serve…..and that the problem needs to be solved together,” said Game Changer Founder, Sean Sheppard.
For more information on Game Changer please visit: GameChanger1.org
About the Community Safety Partnership Bureau
Launched as a program in November, 2011 as a collaboration between the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), the LAPD, and the Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD), CSP places specially-trained and selected officers in a 5-year assignment in one place so they can become part of the community and develop relationships with the people they serve. Initially conceived for the Jordan Downs housing development in Watts, CSP has expanded to 10 sites, including to neighborhoods outside of public housing developments. In a recent study of the CSP model by researchers at UCLA, residents in two sites reported feeling safer and an estimated 220 violent crimes were prevented over a 5-year period.