After being questioned by a Council member Monday, the Los Alamitos Police Chief said this week that significant measures have been taken to ensure readiness and school safety as students returned to campuses in the city.
For the second meeting in a row, Los Alamitos Council member Ron Bates questioned Police Chief Michael Claborn about safety and preparedness measures taken to ensure school safety for the schools within, and near the city.
“Two questions,” said Bates,”the first, do we have all the high powered rifles readily available that we might need if there was a hostage type situation to be well equipped to engage the hostage taker if need be.”
“Pretty much every black and white police car in the city is going to be equipped with a shotgun and patrol rifle,” said Claborn. “So yes, we will be ready to shoot should that incident present itself,” he said.
“We do have all the high-powered rifles,” the Police Chief said, adding that in addition to the pry-bar, each patrol unit is being equipped with a patrol rifle and a shotgun. “We’re well equipped for any hostage situation,” said Claborn.
More specifically, Bates questioned whether the force had been prepared with special training on prying open blockaded doors. Reports of the Uvalde shooter being barricaded, some disputed, have made police aware of the need for officers, all officers, to learn basic techniques for prying doors open.
With a high school and middle schools located in the city, Claborn said “we are prepared for any threats in our city.”
With the issue of barricaded doors fresh on the mind since Uvalde, Claborn told Bates that the Orange County Fire Authority has taken steps to begin training all law enforcement personnel “in the region” with the skills necessary to pry doors open in active shooter situations.
Further, Claborn said the department has acquired and outfitted all units with Halligan Pry bars, a special tool with implements and edges designed to put leverage on barricaded doors to bust them open.
“They can be used for forced entry into a school if they have to,” said Claborn.
Moreover, he said the police force and other emergency units are planning an active shooter drill at McAuliffe Middle School. Though no date has yet been set, Claborn said it will be held on a weekend to minimize school disruptions.
In addition, said Claborn, the department has restored and fully funded a school resource officer that already has an office at Los Alamitos High School.
Claborn said he has met with Supt. Andrew Pulver, Ed.D, and more specifically, the police chief said he is coordinating with Los Al High School Principal Christiana Krauss and Assistant Superintendent for Safety and Student Services Dr. Jerry Friedmann to reinstall a school resource officer in the district.
He said the new school resource officer has indeed established a school resource office at the high school and will periodically visit all of the schools to amplify prevention and be ready to quickly react to any threats.
“My second question relates to what you’re doing, and how it relates to really trying to train to get ahead of the situation,” said Bates, questioning the gathering of intelligence for prevention.
“What I mean by that is, do we have any intelligence programs, anything that we’re working on a countywide basis that would kind of identify obviously, you know, we know that most of these people that are going over the top and shooting people are young males,” said Bates.
“Do we have anything that’s tracking social media that’s trying to identify these people ahead of time and getting in front of this,” he asked?
“The most important thing I can tell you is going to be our school resource officer,” said Claborn, “because if we can get our SRO in schools and establish those relationships, these are the types of relationships that can create leads to prevent this type of thing from happening,” he said.
In addition, he said the Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center (OCIAC), which has received national recognition as an intelligence fusion center, will coordinate with the department and funnel any relevant information to the school resource officer.
He said OCIAC will provide terrorism liaison training and will provide active tracking of all critical events, nationally and locally, to the department and thus, the school resource officer.
“On a more local scale, OSIAC itself puts on terrorism liaison training, so that we can train all of our officers to be liaisons for acts of terrorism or things that they may see in the field to create leads … that they will then investigate,” he said.
“So it’s almost like two-way communication,” said Claborn.
Claborn said the department is also taking advantage of grants that provide specialized training to prepare for any school situation.
“Now on a larger scale as it relates to an active shooter response, the Urban Area Security Initiative branch puts out a three-dimensional active shooter course as well as a tactical emergency Casualty Care course which deals with traumatic injuries that can be sustained and how to treat those in the fields for patrol officers,” said Claborn.
“Both of those courses are being taught by the UASI grant,” the police chief said, “and we are in the process of getting every officer of the department trained in both of those. So those are things that are proactive measures that we’ve taken to try to get all the training we can here in the department,” he added.
In addition to the schools, Claborn said the department is beefing up safety because a major military installation, the Joint Forces Training Base, is also located within the city.
In other action, Mayor Shelley Hasselbrink and the Council honored the city’s finance team for being selected by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada to receive an award for the “Achievement of Excellence in Finance Reporting.”
“This is a big deal,” said Hasselbrink. She said officials with the government finance organization said the city’s finance team had demonstrated “full transparency” in reporting its financial position.
Finance Director Craig Koehler introduced the city’s recently expanded finance team, including Brandy Velleagas, accountant, Maria Benios, senior finance assistant, and John Mulderas, finance manager,
Koehler explained that the organization scrutinizes the city’s bookkeeping each year. “They go through grading criteria and generally note things we need to improve.”
“This is not a given thing, we have to earn it,” he said.
Finally, the city’s recreation department presented a list of upcoming events in September, including Serve Los Al on Sept. 16, OC Health Fair Sept. 17, Bikes & Bytes also on Sept. 17 (with cooperating restaurants), Family Day on Sept. 18 and a spokesperson said they are bringing back the popular Street Fair on Sept. 24.
More information about all of the events is available on the city’s website.