On April 22, the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department Walnut-Diamond Bar station held an open house for residents on April 22.

After a line formed outside the station, sheriff deputies guided the public to visit several departments in the police station building, police helicopters, anti-terrorist armored vehicles, various police cars and fire engines parked in the backyard.

To overcome potential language barriers and serve all the communities, Caption Steve Tousey said the department has now employed four deputies who speak Mandarin. As well actively recruiting Asian deputies.

About 60% of the cities’ populations covered by the Walnut-Diamond Bar station identify as Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Diamond Bar Mayor Andrew Chou attended the event and said, “It’s a great opportunity for us to get to know deputies on a first name basis so that when things do happen, we know who to call.”

Chou said there have been more commercial burglaries of small businesses in recent years.

“That’s been a challenge for us,” he said. “We’re working actively with our police station and we’re now at the city council talking about installing license plate readers so that cameras can actually read license plates at the major intersection.”

Tousey reported the data of crime rate compared with last year.

“Crime in Diamond Bar is a 0.65 increase, crime in Walnut is down 9%,” he said. “And crime in the unincorporated areas increased 20%.”

Tousey added that stations deal more with property crimes than violent crimes.

“It’s gonna be burglaries, thefts from vehicles. But the main thing we’re dealing with right now is commercial burglary,” he said.

Volunteers On Patrol, a program that employs volunteers to patrol the community, is important in combating property crime. Tousey said these volunteers help police stations to patrol the community, check the property and control the traffic.

“It prevents crime, so it’s a very huge and worthy project,” he said.

Tousey encouraged people to apply for the program, “If you have a clean record and you have time to volunteer please come down and fill out an application.”

Diamond Bar resident, Maritza Almeiza, 40, highlighted the career aspect of the event.

“The kids could see career paths. Maybe they want to move on to something like this field,” she said.

She added that the community needs more police patrols.

More information about police stations and VOP projects can be found on the LASD website.