PPOA Board Member
Crime Analyst, LASD
jwalker@ppoa.com
With this issue being dedicated to retirees, this is a great time to share a story about a recent retiree who made a huge impact on me, everyone he worked with, the entire Department and the citizens he spent his life protecting.
One of the many great things about working for this Department is the quality of leaders we encounter. While we all have had bosses or supervisors who we cannot believe have any authority at all, it’s still rare. Because of the changing attitudes of workplace behavior and a younger mindset that relies more on technology to communicate than anything else, the days of big retirement parties and off-training parties seem to have faded drastically, leaving us with nowhere to really honor those people who made an impact on us.
We all have had that one supervisor who just stands above the rest — the kind who works twice as hard as the team they supervise, who isn’t afraid of mentoring and leading, but also will fight harder than ever to support and protect the people the Department trusted them to watch over. Anyone who worked Pico Station in the late 1990s and early 2000s is probably thinking of the same name I am. For me, the man who rises as the best Sergeant, best Lieutenant and best overall Deputy Sheriff who I ever encountered was a man who passed away in July. Sadly, he only enjoyed six years of retirement before cancer cruelly cut his life short, but I considered it an absolute honor to work with the late Kevin C. Lloyd during his career as a public servant.
Kevin was one of a kind. He expected the best work from the people he supervised, and while they may not have always appreciated his hard-driving style, he got things done.
In the early ’90s, there was a high-profile incident in Pico’s area involving a well-organized attack by a local gang on the home of a Pico deputy. This not only was outrageous by societal standards, but also so offended Kevin that he organized a task force to crack down on the attackers (even though the deputy was not physically harmed), and he selected an elite crew to show the community that this outrageous attack would be avenged.
I was assigned to Norwalk at the time, and since the two stations were somewhat merged in those days, I got asked to help organize some of the information into computer databases. Spending time with Kevin’s crew was intense and amazing. He led them with such ease and passion. It was a sight to see. When some dumb rivalry issues led to the Norwalk resources being ordered to stop going to Pico, I was put into one of those “moral quandaries.” Do I disobey a direct order and risk discipline, or do I continue to assist Kevin in ways that the Norwalk brass would not notice? It worked. Also, seeing at how Kevin went to bat for his guys, I knew he had my back. Eighteen months later, when a Crime Analyst spot opened, I felt proud to be working for Kevin Lloyd again, this time “on the books.”
Rest in peace, Kevin Lloyd. All of us are better for knowing you.