LAPD - Foothill Station
If you, a loved one or a family member has been arrested by or is being investigated by a detective of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Foothill Division, it can cause a lot of worries. Facing such a situation, it is normal to need to know the bail amount (if any) associated with the offense (if an own recognizance (OR) release is denied), the evidence needed to convict one for the crime that allegedly took place, the defenses possible and the sentence a judge can impose if one is convicted of the crime.
We at Greg Hill & Associates believe it is also helpful to know a few more things before interacting with any branch of law enforcement. It can be valuable to know the size of the police or sheriff’s department, the area’s demographics, the most common types of crime the department investigates and just a bit about the area’s history to make one’s communication with law enforcement more meaningful, more savvy and perhaps, more respectful. This can lead to a better outcome than if one lacks such perspective.
This article is presented with this goal in mind.
The LAPF Foothill Community Station is staffed with 285 sworn police officers and 26 civilian support staff. The Foothill Station covers an area with a population of approximately 182,214 people and covers 46.13 square miles. They serve the communities of Tujunga, Lakeview Terrace, Sun Valley (North of Golden State Freeway), Sunland, Arleta and Shadow Hills.
This is an extremely large area and while the population is somewhat less dense than in other areas of Los Angeles County, it is an area known for a higher than normal crime.
Tujunga, also called Sunland-Tujunga, has a reputation as a tough community and a center for biker gangs. As a Los Angeles Times writer put it:
No one really knows why so many long-haired, bearded young men on motorcycles, aligned in groups with names like "The Devil's Henchmen", chose to hang out in this workingman's community perched on the southwest slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains a half dozen miles north of downtown Glendale. But hang out they did, in droves, and Tujunga developed an unenviable reputation as one of Southern California's premier "biker towns."
In 2001, another writer called Sunland-Tujunga "part middle-class suburb, eclectic mountain hideaway, and rundown commercial strip dotted with biker hangouts." That same year, still another writer said this about Tujunga:
Police say the bad-apple bikers bring a particular set of problems, mainly the use and sale of speed [methamphetamine]. Tujunga's reputation for meth peaked in the 1990s, and the LAPD singled out the area in 1994 as the speed capital of the Valley. Users cruising for a fix were a common sight on some of the narrow side streets off Tujunga Canyon Boulevard. Police say the meth scene, though still active in Tujunga, is no longer the problem it was, thanks to block-by-block community policing efforts and the town's relative gentrification.
Even Marlene Hitt, the community's newly appointed poet laureate, said in 2001 that she got the job in part to counter Sunland-Tujunga's image as a home to drug dealers.
This has generally been accomplished, as now Tujunga-Sunland is known for its being greatly “gentrified” and less dominated by crime and gangs.
Lakeview Terrace, the second of the five communities the LAPD Foothill Division patrols, is adjacent to Sunland-Tujunga. The community is middle-class and ethnically mixed, including Latinos, African Americans, Asians and Whites. The area hosts a large equestrian community, and is one of the few remaining residential areas in the City of Los Angeles that has private homes zoned for horse keeping. With 2,790 people per square mile, it is among the lowest densities for the city of Los Angeles and among the lowest densities for the county.
Sun Valley is the easternmost of the cities patrolled by the Foothill Division of the LAPD. In 2000 the median age for residents was 28, considered young for city and county neighborhoods; the percentage of residents aged 10 or younger was among the county's highest. The median yearly household income in 2008 dollars was $51,290, considered average for the city but low for the county. The percentages of households that earned $20,000 to $60,000 were high for the county. Renters occupied 46.1% of the housing stock, and house or apartment-owners held 53.9%.
Arleta is the fourth of the five neighborhoods patrolled by the Foothill Division of the LAPD. Arleta is located just west of the I-5 (Golden State) Freeway. Arleta is bordered by Mission Hills and North Hills to the north, Sun Valley to the east (on the other side of the I-5) and Panorama City to the west. As of the 2000 census, 71.7% of the Arleta population was Latino or Hispanic, 11% Asian, 13.2% White and 2.2% African American. Mexico (55.3%) and El Salvador (11.2%) were the most common places of birth for the 46% of the residents who were born abroad—which was a high percentage for Los Angeles.
Shadow Hills, the last area patrolled by the LAPD Foothill Division, is located in the northwestern Verdugo Mountains, near the western end of Crescenta Valley. It is north of Burbank and southeast of the Hansen Dam Reservoir. Shadow Hills, as of the 2000 census, is 79% Caucasian, 14% Latino, 3% Asian American, and 1% African American.
The San Fernando Valley has more street gangs than any part of Los Angeles partly because it is also the largest geographic area defined, and also the turf sizes to these gangs tend to be smaller. There are only a few black gangs in the entire area while there are over 40 Hispanic gangs and over 200 tagger crews. Because no one gang dominates all the others, crime associated with gangs tends to be lower in the area patrolled by the LAPD Foothill Division.
LAPD, Foothill Division
12760 Osborne Street
Pacoima, CA 91331
Los Angeles County
Aaron Ponce, Captain I.
(877) 275-5273
Non-Emergency Calls
(818) 756-8861
General Information
For more information about being arrested and possibly facing a criminal case, please click on the following articles:
Below is the Google Map to the LAPD Foothill Station.
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