The smell of barbeque wafted through the neighborhood of College Park North in Los Alamitos Thursday as neighbors put on quite a tasty spread for the Los Alamitos Police Department.
Los Alamitos Police officers flooded the neighborhood throughout the afternoon, coordinating their shifts among themselves to ensure the city remained protected while they rotated in and out to get a meal of barbequed ribs, chicken, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, homemade cookies and even apple pies from Polly’s (among dozens of other dishes and treats made by the residents).
Officers sat around a table eating their barbeque which was adorned with a miniature centerpiece made with a tiny, stuffed police dog named Elvis, which is the name of the city’s new police K-9 dog. Chief Michael Claborn said recently that Elvis, the real police dog, is on the way and will be fully trained and will be patrolling the streets by early 2024.
In addition to the block party, residents also provided monetary donations to help the police department acquire the dog, said Council member Trisha Murphy, who is a resident of College Park North.
Courtesy photo
“I just want to say thank you so much for coming out today and supporting our Los Alamitos police department who do so much for the community,” she said in introducing two of her neighbors who helped to organize the event.
Shauna Trute, a neighbor who helped organize the event, said the local PD has always been there for her and her neighbors.
“They are always so awesome to us, we wanted to do something for them,” said Trute, one of the event organizers, who lives in the neighborhood.
She and resident Eric Larson, with the assistance of Los Al Council members Trisha Murphy and Emily Hibard, put together an old-fashioned small-town ‘thank your local police’ event.”
“The genesis of this event was back at that Fourth of July party,” said Larson, when Los Al Police was on hand to participate and ensure their neighborhood parade and party was safe.
“You guys and girls from the Los Alamitos police department that came out and we’re very appreciative of all you do, we’re always going to support you guys and girls,” said Larson.
“This neighborhood is a great neighborhood. These events are the types of things we need to do to take care of each other, take care of the community, take care of the state of California,” he said.
State Senator Janet Nguyen briefly stopped by the event, presenting certificates to Trute and Larson.
“With neighborhood neighbors like this, I want to live here. I’m so jealous,” the state Senator said, adding her support for the men and women in blue.
“I want to make sure that I’m here to thank our police department and our police officers,” said Nguyen. “We know that you don’t always get a thank you from folks. But do you know a lot of us, the majority of us love you and we will do anything to stand by your side, not behind you,” she added.
“We will stand by your side and make sure that we protect the blue back the blue because we know that every day you leave your home. You don’t ever know if you’re going to go back home and so we have never forgotten that,” she added.
Evan Flynn, President of the Los Alamitos Police Officers Association, who attended the event, said the neighborhood barbeque is a “great way to develop bigger and better bonds for police in the community.”
“This demonstrates a tremendous effort on behalf of the city to build those bridges between the POA and the city council,” said Flynn, especially as the city and police are about to enter into negotiations over a new contract.
Until city voters approved a 1.5 percent sales tax increase in 2020, the City of Los Alamitos faced severe budget woes that hindered everything from pension payments to police department staffing.
When Michael Claborn became police chief in 2022, he vowed to staff up the department and has since been hiring new officers and modernizing the department to include technology and other innovations such as a K-9 unit.
Flynn said events like the College Park North police barbeque reflect the changing dynamics between the department and the community it protects.
“Things like this definitely puts us at ease and makes us feel that we’re going to have a nice working relationship with the city,” which, according to Flynn, can, at times, become “quite contentious.”
“This makes us feel it’s going to be easy,” said Flynn. “At the end of the day, I try to boil it down to simplest terms, it’s a business. The city has a business and a POA is the organization that represents the employees of that business.”
“I think that you know, it just comes down to an understanding of, you know, this is a business they the city has their bottom line that they must meet to continue offering employment to everyone and offering this place to be a great city for all residents,” he said.
Council member Emily Hibard also attended the event.
Murphy thanked all of the neighbors for coming and working together to make the event happen.
“Thank you, everybody for coming in and for participating. I know we got off to a rocky start as far as how we were going to do this, so thank you for everybody. Maybe we can make this an annual event,” she said.
Neighbors prepare neighborhood feast to thank Los Al police officers for their efforts in keeping the community safe.
“We really appreciate all you do,” she said on behalf of her neighborhood.