First Black woman promoted to LAPD Commander
Captain III Regina Scott
LOS ANGELES - Police Chief Charlie Beck announced a reorganization of the Los Angeles Police Department, as well as the promotion of several officers -- including the first black woman to be given the rank of commander.
Captain III Regina Scott's promotion will become effective Oct. 10. She will then become the assistant commanding officer of the LAPD's Information Technology Bureau.
Beck elevated two other captains to the rank of commander, and reassigned several officers, including changing the leadership of the Gang and Narcotics Division, Criminal Investigation Division, and Harbor Patrol.
Beck also decided to merge the Special Operations Bureau with the Counter Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau to create the Counter Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau.
The COMPSTAT unit, meanwhile, will merge with the Real-Time Analysis and Critical Response Division.
Growing up in inner city New Jersey, Regina Scott always saw police officers strolling into her community, but she never saw an African American female in uniform.
“Then I saw Christie Love, and knew I wanted to become a police officer,” recalls Scott, who chose that route even though people steadily told her it wouldn’t happen.
Undeterred, Scott began plotting a career course that would prepare her for that dream job.
Dear Editor:
It’s interesting how the police, who were once ordinary people like you and I, propel themselves to superiority by putting on uniforms.
I am a 26-year-old, African American female and personally, I am so tired of the racism we, as African Americans experience, I could just scream. My mother is an Los Angeles Police Department officer, and I have been trying my entire life to believe that not all agencies or officers are racist. But outside of my family, I’ve been proven wrong.
After killing 10 Black women and at least one Black man in South Central Los Angeles for almost 25 years, a man suspected of being the so-called “Grim Sleeper” was arrested yesterday by the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD took 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. into custody at his home on 81st Street near Western Avenue. His arrest is the culmination of an investigation that began more than two decades ago.
LOS ANGELES - Authorities announced a $50,000 reward for information that helps solve the killing of a 23-year-old Upland woman hit by apparent stray gunfire as she sat in a car in South Los Angeles.
Shaquana Denise Watson was shot about 9 p.m. July 27 in the 5300 block of South Broadway. She died at a hospital.
"She was a passenger in a car that was parked at the curb,'' Los Angeles police Officer Rosario Herrera said. "She was struck by gunfire that came from a passing white van.''
LOS ANGELES - Police Chief Charlie Beck said today the Los Angeles Police Department's response to emergencies has not been slowed down by budget cuts, but did not offer guarantees for the future.
"Many of the issues we're dealing with have not affected response time at this point. That is not to say that they won't in the future,'' Beck told the Police Commission.
Beck said the department is determined to focus its limited resources on its "core missions,'' and a quick response to emergencies is among those.
