Chief's Community Update - September 3, 2023
Thank you for visiting our website and taking a moment to read this community update.
September 2, 2023 was a very busy Saturday. The patrol team was dispatched to an auto collision involving a suspected DUI driver who was arguing with other vehicle owners. When the first Officer arrived on scene, the driver fled on foot. Our Officer chased him and caught up to him when he failed to completely climb over a wrought iron fence. When our Officer tried to place the suspect in handcuffs, the suspect’s girlfriend got behind our Officer and put our Officer in a choke hold. Our Officer was able to fight her off and keep her away until additional Officers arrived and took her into custody. The suspect driver was taken into custody and arrested for several charges including DUI, hit and run, and parole violation. His girlfriend was also arrested for attacking the Officer. Both were booked into the County Jail.
Rolled Curb Parking
As part of the overall City of East Palo Alto effort to educate our community on the proper way to park along rolled curbs, we have been distributing flyers throughout our community where rolled curbs exist. We published a rolled curb instructional video using our Facebook and Instagram accounts in English and Tongan. We are working on preparing our videos for the hearing impaired, Spanish, and Samoan. We hope to have those out this week. We initially planned to start issuing parking citations in the middle of September. Since we had a delay with our instructional videos, we do not plan to start issuing parking citations until the beginning of October at the earliest.
If anyone wants to help us distribute flyers, please come by the Police Department.
We are hiring!
Do you know someone who is genuinely a good person, has a passion for serving others, and would be a great fit for our department and community please bring them in. We are hiring for:
- Police Recruit
- Police Officer
- Police Reserve Officer
- Police Commander (remaining open until the position is filled)
Our open recruitments can be found at https://www.calopps.org/city-of-east-palo-alto.
Anonymous tips and immediate service
We appreciate all the anonymous tips we have been receiving. It is important to note that anonymous tips are not a resource for immediate police response as it is not monitored 24/7. For immediate police response, either call 9-1-1 or our non-emergency phone number 650-321-1112. For complaints related to property violations, please contact Code Enforcement department, which operates under our building department (https://www.cityofepa.org/building/page/code-enforcement).
When providing information to the police, we need specific information about the crime or criminal. As an example, if you are reporting someone for dealing drugs, we need to know:
- where and when they are selling the drugs
- a detailed description of them (white female, blue jeans, red jacket, baseball cap)
- any description of a vehicle
- any other information you have about the crime.
While we don’t expect you to jeopardize your safety to get this information, it is very important information if we make an arrest. Not only will your tip provide us with accurate information about the suspect, but we are also able to serve as a witness to the crime and we can testify in court. Please use these options for providing an anonymous tip.
You can make an anonymous tip to the police by calling or texting to (650) 409-6792.
If there is a topic you would like addressed in the next update, please feel free to send an email at jliu@cityofepa.org.
Thank you,
Jeff Liu
Chief of Police
