I was extremely disappointed with a Daily News piece I read in Mariel Garza’s column on Nov 12th. Let me start by explaining that I am speaking exclusively for myself (not as a representative of any agency or anyone else). However, I proudly serve as a middle manager on the LAPD at one of the Community Police Stations in the San Fernando Valley. In my case, I work in my own community. I waited for a significant portion of my 25-year career to work exactly where I do, and consider it an honor to serve there.
With that in mind I’d like to share a few recent contacts I encountered while on-duty at the station. As a Watch Commander for the late-night shift, several college students recently came to the station in close proximity to gather information on a CSUN homework assignment they were completing. One particular college woman and her boyfriend came to the station and spent some time with one of my desk officers. After about 15-minutes the officer came to me informing that the young woman at the desk was requesting documentation related to her homework assignment that the Department couldn’t release to her. The young woman pushed the issue stating that her professor informed her that she would be entitled to the documents she was requesting.
I responded to the desk and engaged in a very positive contact with the student and her boyfriend. We had a good laugh over the “tomorrow” due date of her assignment … never do any homework today that you can put off until tomorrow … We did, however, spend the better part of twenty minutes actually discussing her assignment. The student was asking for copies of fresh crime reports and officers’ activity logs from that day (DFAR’s - Daily Field Activity Reports). The information listed on such documents includes the name, address, and other confidential information on victims, witnesses, and suspects that is not available for simple release to the public. Could you imagine the police releasing information on anyone who was included on a sexual assault investigation? I did, however, also explain how the student could access public information via other sources. I even extended her an invitation to come back during daytime hours to glean information from personnel in our Crime Analysis Detail (CAD Unit). In each station the staff in that assignment keeps and continuously updates statistical data on crime trends, patterns, wanted suspect flyers, and an entire host of other related information that is available to the public. I offered to leave word with the CAD staff that the student would be coming in the next morning, and to prepare to assist her. She declined that offer, as the due date for her assignment would come around before she could take advantage of it. My desk officer offered to give her and her boyfriend a station tour to assist her with her project. She happily accepted, and I approved the officer’s time to do so.
Despite the mutually positive encounter with the student there was one exceptionally worrisome element in the contact. The young woman described that her teacher had suggested to the students that they could earn a good grade on the project if they were to get themselves arrested and see the law enforcement function from the inside. I was amazed that a college teacher would suggest such a thing. I clearly and distinctly cautioned the young woman to think that advice through completely before acting on it. I pointed out to the young woman that her marketability to the work force could be compromised should she do something that would get her arrested. I made it very, very, clear that the teacher’s suggestion might not be in the students’ best interest. I repeated the point to the student, and encouraged her to have the teacher contact me personally to discuss the teacher’s advice to the students. In the end the above mentioned station tour was given, and the student and her boyfriend left with a spirit of good wishes and hopes for her success in the future.
A few days later I was supervising the Day Watch Patrol assignment when another student came to the station to gather information for a homework assignment from Pierce College. This particular young woman came to the station with her approximately 20-month old baby (a darling child in a stroller working a binky that matched the outfit!). This student was tasked with speaking to a police supervisor to address her homework project. I had a field sergeant come to the station and submit to an interview with the young mother. The sergeant spent over 35-minutes with her. During that time I twice stopped what I was doing to wash off her baby’s pacifier that kept finding its way to the floor. She too left my station after what turned out to be a mutually positive community contact.
With all this in mind, I repeat my disappointment with the Daily News article posted in the Nov. 12th edition. The article displays the utter disdain and condemnation of the Valley LAPD stations as seen through the eyes of a CSUN journalism teacher who also writes for the Daily News. The teacher opined that her students found an overall lack of care and cooperation during their encounters at several of the Valley’s Community Police Stations. Granted I have no way of knowing what her students told her about those encounters. Lord knows I have enough parenting and educational experience myself to know that her students could have told her anything about the timeliness of their assignment ... i.e. the dog ate my homework / the police wouldn’t give me any source documents / etc. In any event, the simple truth is that I bent over backwards to accommodate the needs of these students, as I do with all citizens in this community. I view the people who come into my station as my neighbors, and I demand my subordinate officers treat them accordingly. Given the quality of the fine men and woman that serve the community along with me at “my” station, this is a self-fulfilling policy and not something I have to “sell” to them. Though I can’t account for the opinion Ms. Garza holds for those in my profession, I am certainly let down that as a Daily News journalist she would print the article she did on the Nov. 12th edition without first checking on the reliability of her story.
My thoughts go to an all too familiar twist to an old expression “No good deed goes unpunished!” I’ll close my thoughts with these two points (again, me personally). First, if Ms. Garza should ever find herself as the victim, witness, or suspect on a crime report, followed by someone coming to the station asking for a copy of that police report (listing her name and other personal information), I promise to completely respect her privacy and not release an unauthorized copy of the report to a complete stranger. Secondly, my opinion that the students should not get themselves arrested for a grade, stands firm. I am available to discuss that opinion on my own time, on Ms. Garza’s schedule, and at her choice of venue. As for the Daily News, I wonder if this response will hold the same prominence in your newspaper as the one displayed by Ms. Garza on Nov. 12.
Vincent Neglia
As a former reporter and college-level journalism instructor, I questioned the value of Ms. Garza's information treasure hunt in a now-expired thread. A fellow blogger named Hans pointed out that some of the students might have learned from the experience of being denied public information, and that the LAPD should learn to respect its public obligations.
I agree that both of those lessons are good ones, but I just do not think this exercise was a good vehicle for teaching them. Both the students and the police had difficulty figuring out just what the instructor wanted. Your division's "daily crime log" turned out to be a document containing non-public information. Some students apparently believed that they were entitled to the records by operation of law. And they may have been, but they probably would have received a redacted version, and they probably were not entitled to it on demand.
The end result, I maintained, was a whole lot of futility and a nifty little column for the adjunct instructor and the Little Paper That Could. Your experience suggests a flaw in the reporting of the affair. The students' experiences at the police station apparently were not uniform, and your courtesies went unreported.
I stand by my view that this attempted academic exercise was a waste of everyone's time, and that the column was knee-jerk and out of touch with the reality of police reporting.
As for the instruction to try to get arrested, I find it not very credible. As outrageous have been the stunts pulled by various Daily News people over the years, I think this one would be beyond even them.
I hope all of you LAPD folk understand that most journalists really are trying to do an honest job, and a lot of them do. Their ranks are filled with a lot of young and inexperienced people. There are also some bad apples, though not many. A lot of them are just plain lazy. So a lot of nasty incidents seem to happen again and again, and because you are the news sources, you get the brunt of it. Easy for us outsiders to say, but I think it comes with the territory. And there are many times when their published criticisms of the department are more right than wrong.
This Daily News thing just was not one of those times.
Posted by: Gabe | November 27, 2024 at 07:19 PM
To Vincent Neglia,
Thank you for setting the record straight. I hope Ms. Garza takes you up on the offer over coffe.
Posted by: Daily News Subcriber | November 27, 2024 at 10:47 PM
Very very good and articulate response. And who says the news/journalism isn't one sided or even biased towards law enforcement.
Posted by: P2 worker | November 28, 2024 at 08:00 AM
Bravo Vince!
Posted by: Lawgirl | November 28, 2024 at 01:40 PM
Mariel Garza... are you out there?!? Touche to the Watch Commander, and thank you for your service!
Posted by: Interested Observer | November 28, 2024 at 07:31 PM
Well stated Sir! Keep up the good work up there. Perhaps the media elitists like Ms. Garza will show some backbone and stand up to this consent decree that the city is being victimized by? Though I doubt that too! God knows that most of our elected Officials have no guts!
Stay Safe
Proud South Central Warrior Cop
Ed O'Shea
Posted by: Ed O' Shea | November 28, 2024 at 10:06 PM
Another perfect example of why your blog is getting so much attention nationwide.... it's the end of an era for people who used to own the news.
Posted by: SacPD Sgt | November 30, 2024 at 09:10 AM
If every LAPD officer were as eventempered and reasonable as Sgt. Neglia, that column would never have been needed. Not to mention concerned about a germ-laden pacifier in a baby's mouth .... even a pesky journalism student's baby, at that!
As I recall, the column admitted it was painting with a broad brush, and that not all of the students had encountered uncivil responses.
Not every police supervisor is as public-service inclined or as good-humored as Sgt. Neglia. Nor, frankly, should the public expect that wonderful level of solicitude and helpfulness. The point of the column is that not all LAPD officers are as public spirited ... and that the percentage of uncivil responses may be rising.
I certainly think journalists and police can both agree that relations between us have high points and low points, and that the lows seem to stand out more in memory, or at the water cooler, than the highs.
Hats off to the hardworking, polite and civil officers like Sgt. Neglia. A pox on any student who would take seriously any comment by a prof that getting arrested gets you extra credit.
I would posit that the very existence of this discussion proves that the academic exercise was not a waste of time.
Hans Laetz
Reporter, Malibu Surfside News
Posted by: Hans Laetz | November 30, 2024 at 11:11 AM
All I have to say is....
Why is Sgt Neglia not Capt Neglia?
Great job boss!
East Coast leads the way.
Posted by: MyCousinVinny | November 30, 2024 at 05:32 PM
OK, after reading this, can anyone not see the value of police logs for an enterprising reporter?
Sorry for the length, but electrons are cheap.
Crime Wave
A sampling of OC’s recent lapses in judgment
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY / OC Weekly
Thursday, November 30, 2024 - 3:00 pm
A woman walked onto Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, attempted to direct traffic, tossed hot coffee on passing motorists, and was arrested.
A tenant with martial arts skills slung a knife into his landlord’s bedroom after his rent was raised.
Police found an unconscious drunk man sitting in his silver Corvette with the engine running.
Neighbors yelled racial slurs at each other from across the street.
Juveniles threw bricks at cars.
A woman reported that a gray alien—male and from outer space—was standing on her balcony and plotting to kill her.
An angry man stood outside of an apartment complex screaming for someone, anyone, to come out and fight.
Unconcerned about the audience, a couple engaged in a lengthy intercourse session beside the pool at an apartment complex.
A group of men ate dinner at a restaurant and fled without paying.
A man strolled calmly through a Mission Viejo neighborhood wearing nothing but a T-shirt and an erection.
Someone slammed a trailer hitch into a car window.
Two burglars attempted to steal a washing machine from a Corona del Mar residence.
A woman found her car covered in glue and eggs.
Neighbors at an apartment complex refused to stop banging on a shared wall.
Someone painted graffiti on a Laguna Beach church.
High on a bad drug trip, a woman screamed, made bizarre faces and threatened other females inside a beachfront public restroom.
A man stood outside of his ex-girlfriend’s house and yelled obscenities.
A female on a public bus threw coins at motorists.
Police arrested a man for attempting to suffocate his wife, who’d managed to lock herself in a bathroom with a cell phone.
A teenage boy stole two 36-packs of beer from a store and fled in a car with a girl.
A Laguna Beach woman called police because a hummingbird was “flying aggressively” around her house.
The mailbox at a residence was bombed.
A customer at a Smart & Final spat on employees.
Male juveniles walked down a residential street urinating on a series of lawns.
A woman reported that an unknown nude man wearing a bag on his head was standing in her back yard at 7:30 a.m.
An intoxicated driver almost caused a collision in a liquor store parking lot before his passenger bought another case of beer.
A would-be intruder attempted to kick down a front door at an occupied residence.
A man repeatedly slugged a pregnant woman in a Dana Point street.
Someone drove onto the front lawn of an Irvine residence and performed doughnuts, causing $1,000 in damage.
A family threw rocks over a fence at their neighbors.
A patron wanted a San Clemente shop owner arrested for rudeness.
Three men were found drunk behind a Dana Point restaurant.
A vandal yanked off side-view mirrors from cars parked on a street.
A man stabbed another man in the neck and then stole his car.
A woman ransacked her house.
A dozen juveniles threw pumpkins at passing traffic.
A man and his aunt slugged each other enough for blood to pour in a dispute about a cell phone.
Two sets of four gunshots were heard on Crown Valley Parkway.
Police escorted a group of teens out of the Fountain Valley Skating Rink because they were highly intoxicated; one girl was so drunk she had to be hospitalized.
A woman’s current and ex- husbands slugged each other while attending a youth soccer match.
A man was robbed in Huntington Beach and then shot in the face.
Two men used pepper spray to steal another man’s PlayStation 3.
Someone fired a flare gun blast into a pedestrian.
A man standing on a sidewalk and wearing only a shirt masturbated in front of a girl.
A despondent woman stood in the street and stared up at the sky for more than an hour.
The driver of a Jetta, suffering from road rage, threw a steady stream of objects at another vehicle traveling in the same direction.
A man swinging a baseball bat and circling a car occupied by a woman made terrorist threats.
A group of men with “shaved heads and tattoos” and carrying a snub-nosed revolver were seen walking down a residential street.
Two juvenile customers spat on employees at a restaurant and refused to leave.
A woman stopped in front of a Laguna Beach residence, squatted and urinated in the driveway.
A man struck his wife in the head with an object during an argument.
After a dispute over a parking space, a woman returned to find the air had been let out of all her car tires.
A 45-year-old La Habra man molested his 4-year-old daughter, filmed his crimes and then distributed the videos to pedophiles on the Internet.
Someone called a Laguna Beach restaurant and threatened a waiter.
Two Huntington Beach lesbian partners engaged each other in a brutal fistfight.
Several juveniles assaulted a Coto de Caza female.
A terrified resident watched a group of people throw tennis balls at her house.
A man angry at his neighbors shut off the water to his apartment building.
Juveniles torched paper towel rolls in a convenience store parking lot.
A 24-year-old man broke into a house and beat a woman.
A man drove his car into an Irvine house.
Someone smeared feces on a vehicle parked in a driveway.
An intoxicated woman driving a PT Cruiser rear-ended another car on Alicia Parkway and got out of her car but could not stand.
Huntington Beach neighbors threw plants at each other.
A man fondled two women at a swap meet.
Intoxicated juveniles in a Toyota, a Suburban, a Jetta and a limousine raced on Aliso Creek Road, stopped, and then, according to a witness, threw up.
A man pummeled his girlfriend’s face in public.
A middle-aged man stood on a bus bench and yelled obscenities at no one in particular.
An ex-boyfriend left a threatening note on a woman’s car and front door.
A woman slashed the tires and smashed the windshield on her ex-boyfriend’s car.
A man punched his wife and pulled her hair.
A man rang the doorbell at his ex-wife’s house and demanded money at gunpoint.
A prankster used real crime scene tape and chalk to sketch the outline of a corpse in front of a business.
A stranger walked into a man’s house, used the trash can and walked out without a saying a word.
A smiling pervert in an SUV honked, waved over some girls with one hand and masturbated with the other.
Four 11-year-old boys were found drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
An adult male spectator at a middle school sports contest spewed profanities and sought a fistfight with other parents.
A hefty butcher knife and latex gloves were found in the bushes at an elementary school.
Someone planted a homemade bomb next to a Huntington Beach lifeguard tower.
Three men with shotguns and a pistol attempted to kill an owl in a public park.
Police arrested a Ladera Ranch businessman after he fired several bullets at a Yellow Pages phone book inside his office.
A man walked into an Albertson’s grocery store in the middle of the day, found the liquor section and began gulping from numerous liquor bottles.
An elderly female was found standing “catatonic” next to railroad tracks.
Posted by: Hans Laetz | November 30, 2024 at 10:43 PM
I was most pleased to read this police officer's version of what transpired during his efforts to be of assistance to college students in our community.
It is unfortunate that some of those with the access to the power of the press misuse and abuse this important constitutionally protected form of communications.
I would strongly suggest that you let President Joelene Koester and her Provost at Cal State Northridge know of the actions of this supposed educator/reporter, so that she will hopefully experience an accountability process similar to that which the men and women of our outstanding LAPD undergo. Then she can write about her disciplinary proceedings in as much detail as she damned the police.
It is time that we all demand the same accountabilty of our press as they demand of others.
Congratulations to LAPD for the outstanding job that they all do in keeping us free and safe from the law breaking and violent members of our society.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Lee | November 30, 2024 at 11:07 PM
As a 20 year LA Policeman and a "community" member who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, I am disappointed with the Daily News to print such an outlandish lie about LAPD. I guess they want to get negative media new stories so they can compete with the liberal LA Times. Hats off to Vince Neglia for telling the facts. Additionally, as a graduate of CSUN both a B.A. in criminology and and a Master's in Public Admin, I always held my professor's to task any time they tried to impose their "pie in the sky" leftist ideals in the classroom. Fortunately, most of my instructors were level-headed people who didn't hold my law & order viewpoints against me when grading my term papers. I must confess, academia can be a haven for those who don't subscribe to traditionalist views of personal accountability, self-sufficiency, and respect for the mores of society. My two-cents worth (it cost me $30,000.00 in student loans to earn it!)
TIM
Posted by: Tim | December 01, 2024 at 03:29 AM
Anyone that knows or who's worked for Lt. Vinnie Neglia, knows that the man has a heart of gold and that he is man of his word.
When Vinnie gets his Capt's bars, I'll be the fisrt one to throw my transfer into his division.
Posted by: WatchtheWatchCommander | December 05, 2024 at 11:50 AM