Photos: Senior Lead Officers Summit Celebrates Change

Some 200 people gathered Thursday at the Greek Theater for the Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Division’s Senior Lead Officers Summit—and to celebrate the theme of the evening’s event: Change.

“We recognize we’re having new senior lead officers, two new commanding officers, and our neighborhoods are changing,” Northeast Capt. Jeff Bert said, alluding to the fact that over the past four months the Northeast station has had two new captains, including himself. 

The changes at the Northeast station come at a time when more than half the members of the Los Angeles City Council are also new. Two recently elected councilmembers—Gil Cedillo of CD 1 and Mitch Farrell of CD 13—were also present at Thursday's summit.

The Northeast Division recently appointed two new senior lead officers—Lloyd Chang and Frank Serrano. Chang will be the senior lead officer for northern Highland Park and Garvanza, and Serrano will the SLO for Glassell Park and Cypress Park. They replaced, respectively, Fernando Ochoa and Adam Mezquita, two officers from the Community Relations unit who were acting SLOs following a reshuffle earlier this year.

The Northeast Division now has 10 confirmed senior lead officers, and one of them, Lenny Davis, who was moved from East Hollywood to Silver Lake, was named Senior Lead Officer of The Year at Thursday's ceremony. (Davis was replaced in East Hollywood by former Eagle Rock SLO Craig Orange, who, in turn, was replaced by Nina Preciado, formerly in charge of southern Highland Park.)

“There’s a big move throughout the United States of people moving back into cities, and Los Angeles is experiencing that at a rate that I haven’t seen in 17 years,” Bert told Patch, adding: “We welcome it, but when change comes, people are surprised that, Oh my gosh, I just moved from Simi Valley and I’m living next to graffiti.”

As a force, the LAPD has to be “even more understanding of neighborhoods that are in the process of transforming,” Bert said. “We’re going to keep on getting better as an organization and a community partnership.”