Olympic Park Neighborhood Council Hosts Community Party
- Details
- Category: Community News
- Published on Thursday, 30 October 2014 15:22
- Written by Dawn Kirkpatrick
Held both inside the restaurant and outside on Pips’ patio, the buffet offered community members a chance to mingle, learn about the OPNC and enjoy such delicacies as cannelloni, meatballs covered with barbeque sauce and slices of thin-crust pizza. Members were also treated to an open bar.Commanding Officer of the Wilshire Community Police Station Capt. Eric T. Davis, Wilshire Community Police Station SLO Hebel Rodriguez and Olympic Community Station’s SLO Harry Cho were also in attendance. All three chatted with community members and posed for photographs.
Half way through the evening, OPNC outgoing President John Jake took the stage to make a few important announcements, including the announcement that Capt. Davis would be retiring in October. Davis, a San Francisco native, joined the LAPD in 1981 and has served as the Commanding Officer of the Wilshire Community Police Station since 2008. Davis, a two-time recipient of the police department’s Police Meritorious Unit Citation, has been praised by colleagues and community members alike for his dedication, outreach efforts and service to the community and the rest of the citizens of Los Angeles.
Jake also introduced buffet attendees to incoming OPNC president Jocelyn E. Duarte, incoming vice president Anya Adams and new neighborhood prosecutor, Mehrnoosh Zahiri.
The highlight of the evening, though, was the presentation of OPNC awards for outstanding courage to Officers April Lockhart and Alberto Ortiz. Both officers faced down Wilshire Community Police Station shooter Daniel C. Yealu this past April. Yealu shot Ortiz seven times at close range with a semiautomatic gun and miraculously Ortiz survived.
Helping to introduce both officers and present them with the awards was OPNC board member Daphne Brogdon. Brogdan was at the OPNC meeting at the station as was Jake the night the April shooting occurred.
Brogdan praised the bravery and life-saving actions of the two officers as she and Jake
presented them with the OPNC awards. (Brogdon’s first-hand account of the shooting was featured in TNN’s June/July issue.
Photos by Dawn Kirkpatrick