Star & Shield Magazine

Staying Ready to Navigate Life’s Unexpected Turns

This year has been marked by profound sorrow, as we’ve faced the heartbreaking reality of losing several of our colleagues. In a world where the unexpected can occur without warning, having family affairs in order is not merely a task for the overly cautious but an essential aspect of responsible living. The advantages of being prepared are many, including reducing stress during emergencies and ensuring the safety of loved ones and assets. Keeping your personal and beneficiary details up to date ensures peace of mind. Read More

Looking Ahead to 2024

I am certainly hopeful that PPOA members in Bargaining Unit (B/U) 612 exercised one of their most powerful union privileges by voting in this year’s PPOA Board elections. The three open Board seats in Unit 612 had seven candidates (six Sergeants/one Lieutenant). One of the very important factors in this election was that PPOA director/president, Lieutenant Nancy Escobedo, did not seek re-election, which will mean that at the December 13 Board of Directors meeting, a sworn member by a majority vote of the Board will be selected as president (PPOA Bylaws, Article V, Section 2: [A]). Read More

At This Critical Juncture, Every Newly Hired Custody Assistant Is Crucial

With overtime at an excruciating volume and the inability to hire and fill vacancies at an impactful rate, what is being done? And what can be done? Applications are not coming in at their previous numbers, and some applicants who pass their initial phase and begin their Custody Assistant (C/A) process can get redirected toward the DST process. In that scenario, it’s more advantageous to run C/A academies at a more consistent clip. The idea may be to run classes more consistently so as to not lose bodies to another agency or another profession while waiting on an academy or a larger class size. Read More

A True Trailblazer Retires After 37 Years of Service

In 1986, Sheriff Sherman Block and the Sheriff’s Department gave the green light to forming something very few police agencies had at the time — a Crime Analysis Unit. Very few police agencies understood what crime analysis was, but once they established the unit and hired the most qualified people, they quickly realized that working smarter was the key to solving crimes and that removing many of the mundane tasks that detectives were used to doing gave the sworn officers more time to catch bad guys and ultimately make our community safer. Read More