ATTN: LAPD Officers

[bobbitogarcia]

Dear LAPD Officer(s),

I was just wondering about something....

If a person is hired by the LAPD, and they excel at the job for 2-3 years or so, would this be a good platform for transferring to California Highway Patrol? How about the Sheriff's Department of a small town? In your experience, do the CHP and small town Sheriff Departments acknowledge experience from the LAPD?

What I'd like to do is get some real heavy experience in law enforcement under my belt in one of the more intense units of the LAPD early on while I'm still young and then transfer to something less stressful that hopefully would allow me to have the weekends off. Even if I had to take a pay cut and relocate, I'd be willing to if it meant I could just work the weekdays.

Thank you for your time. I respect and appreciate what you all do.

[Kimble]

If you want to work for LAPD, or any agency for that matter, good luck. However, consider this: if you leave agencies a lot of times you also leave retirement/leave hours/seniority/etc. For example, I worked for 2 local LE agencies and then went to a federal one. I've got less than 4 years in the federal job, so I've got decent amount of seniority and leave, but not nearly as much as if I had stayed with one agency (I also had to start my retirement pension over with each agency change I made).

To each his/her own, and if you want to start with LAPD and leave to go elsewhere more power to you, but there's "less stressful" assignments in every agency. It's not as if once you work for LAPD or some other large metro PD that you have to stay in patrol kicking in doors your entire career.

[bobbitogarcia]

Kimble,

Is the LAPD a bad agency or something? The way you talk about it makes it kind of sound that way...

Here's what happened-- I talked to someone from the California Highway Patrol and they said that until the end of 2011 they're not going to look at new applicants because of the surplus of applications they already have to process.

I thought if I worked at a large agency like LAPD for a couple years it would make me an especially attractive applicant once the time came to apply to California Highway Patrol. What do you think? What's the best way to segway into CHP if you had to wait a few years to get in because of the economy?

[Kimble]

Kimble,

Is the LAPD a bad agency or something? The way you talk about it makes it kind of sound that way...

No clue how you read that from my post, that's not at all what I said. My point (which you seem to have missed) is that when you change agencies you also have to start all over again with retirement, seniority, leave, etc. Do whatever you wish but sometimes sticking with a single agency (LAPD or otherwise) for an entire career has it's benefits since you don't have to start all over like you do when you go to another agency.

[bobbitogarcia]

Nevermind about that, then. But what do you say, anything on my last post???

[marinepilot]

Nevermind about that, then. But what do you say, anything on my last post???

bobbitogarcia, first of all, allow me to welcome you to RP from the Florida Panhandle. Usually we ask all of our newest members to go to the New Member Introductions forum and post a thread telling us a bit about yourself first because coming into our internet home and blasting us with questions is considered bad form here.

As for your plan, I believe Kimble has answered it by saying it's up to you. If the CHP is not hiring because they have way too many applications to process, then I would think that no matter what kind of awesome LE experience you had would not matter as they aren't hiring. Also, I just have to ask, do you truly believe you'd be able to get weekends off in the CHP? Or a small Sheriff's department? Weekends are when most crime happens, so if you're looking for weekends off I'd suggest another field of interest. Although you could always look into School Resource Officer, but in my agency even they have to go on patrol one WEEKEND a month.

Oh, and if you know that CHP is overflowing with applications, what makes you think LAPD isn't also and has just as long a wait to vet hired on there?

My advice would be almost the same as Kimbles, and that is to apply to a few agencies you would like to work for and then just make a career out of the one that hires you. Maybe you can be the one to find that assignment that guarantees you no working weekends or holidays.

Best of luck and let us know how it turns out.

[bobbitogarcia]

I think you're right man. I need to approach this situation with caution. But as far as LAPD goes, they are hiring right now. The initial entrance exam that precedes academy admittance is offered every week for the following year. They need people.

From the looks of it it's not plausible to get those dern weekends off, but I appreciate you all for answering. Didn't mean to sport bad form by not introducing myself, but seeing as you all have answered my question, I don't know what use that'll do (introducing myself) because that's the only reason I got this account was to ask that one question.

Thank you for your honest explanations.

[Citicop]

From the looks of it it's not plausible to get those dern weekends off, but I appreciate you all for answering.

If weekends off or a regular schedule are important to you, Law Enforcement is not a field you want to be involved in.

[shane]

Dude, dont come to us (LAPD) if your heart is not in it to work for this organization-- this family. Second, CHP is a totally different world from Police and Sheriff, on top of agencies being very different from city to city, co to co.

In short, sounds like youre not to up on what this profession is really about. Eh, maybe youre a young guy, getting your feelers out. Later

[L-1]

Let me suggest that your plan has some flaws.

LAPD is a proactive law enforcement agency with a heavy call load, that serves a high crime rate community. You are constantly hopping from call to call, seeking out crime and have little time for the warm and fuzzy community stuff we would all like to see in a model police department. Your training and equipment will be far above most agencies. After a few years you will have more training and experience that most small town cops get over their entire career.

All of this may be a hindrance when you try to move to a small, rural agency. Small towns have a lot less crime, The enforcement posture of their law enforcement agencies is not aggressive like LAPD, but tends to be more laid back. Based on your years of fast paced LAPD experience, they will be afraid that you'll find their lack of crime boring and quit soon after going to work for them. They will also be afraid that your LAPD training to aggressively seek out crime will only antagonize the public in a small town where there is little crime to be found. Because your training and experience will be superior to that of the other small town officers you work with, your peers may resent and shun you. In short, most small town agencies may shy away from hiring you because you are former LAPD.

Going to CHP after working for LAPD may be culture shock for you, While LAPD performs general law enforcement duties, CHP is primarily focused on accident investigation and traffic enforcement, with little opportunity for general law enforcement duties. While they do have a few special duty units that enforce laws other than the vehicle code, they are staffed by less than 5% of their personnel, the scope of their duties are fairly limited and the opportunities to work these assignments are just as limited. In short, if you love working traffic, CHP is for you. But if you want to be in general law enforcement, going there is not a good ideal.