Goodbye Officer Ochoa—You’ll be Missed in Garvanza and Northern Highland Park

Fernando, one of the world’s greatest hit singles by the 1970s Swedish pop group Abba, tells of two veterans of the Mexican revolution reminiscing about a lost battle they fought in their younger days. 

Someday in the not-too-distant future, it’s entirely possible that Senior Lead Officer Fernando Ochoa will look back on the decades he spent working for the Los Angeles Police Department and will wax nostalgic about one career “battle” he lost right here in Highland Park.

On the face of it, what Ochoa is up against seems pretty straightforward: After more than five months of filling in as a senior lead officer for Garvanza and the northern portion of Highland Park, he will be assigned to patrol duty—or possibly returning to his old post in the LAPD Northeast’s community relations unit.

The rub lies in the fact that Ochoa, who has more than 20 service under his belt, had strong hopes that he would be confirmed as the SLO for northern Highland Park and Garvanza. But those hopes were dashed when the SLO position Ochoa had been temporarily handling, following a reshuffle of senior lead officers across the Northeast Division this past February, was given to someone else.

Serrano and Chang—'The Most Difficult Decision'

On Monday, Northeast Capt. Jeff Bert announced at the monthly meeting of the Community Policing Advisory Board that Officer Lloyd Chang would become the senior lead officer for northern Highland Park and Garvanza. In a related appointment, Bert announced that Officer Frank Serrano would be the senior lead for Glassell Park and Cypress Park, effectively replacing Ochoa’s former Community Relations colleague Adam Mezquita.

Bert described Chang and Serrano as “very seasoned patrol officers” who had been selected from a pool of 30 applicants for the two senior lead officer posts. 

“The most difficult decision I’ve made administratively since I’ve been here in four months is the selection of senior lead officers,” Bert said. Of the 30 candidates, at least 12 were “not just qualified but better cops on their worst day than I’ve ever been out on the field.”

Ochoa and Mezquita—'Down-to-Earth, Solid Cops'

Bert counted Ochoa and Mezquita among those dozen officers, calling them “down-to-earth, solid, good cops.” Not confirming them as SLOs has resulted in “a lot of calls” from community members. “What were you thinking?” some of the callers taunted him, Bert said, explaining that his decision was “not made in a vacuum” but after around 60 phone calls to different people, including supervisors and community members.

“Frankly, I had a heart-to-heart with myself about what I was looking for,” Bert said. “It was a very tough decision for me, not just because of the community feedback but I’d gotten to work with the people who were acting.”

The sheer amount of talent in the Northeast Division also added to the agony of Bert’s decision. “Northeast is a strange place,” the captain said. “There are people who have been here for longer than I’ve been a cop—and they’re the best cops in the LAPD.”

At the end of the day, “my job is to serve the community and to provide you with the best quality service,” Bert said. “And I really believe in my heart and with my brain that after my assessment what I’ve put in are people who are going to knock it out of the park in your communities.” 

Bert acknowledged to Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch after the CPAB meeting that community members grow to love the officers they become familiar with—and “rightly so” because more often than not those officers are nothing less than phenomenal. “And I really believe they [community members] will learn to love Frank and Lloyd,” Bert added.

The one thing Bert did not mention during the CPAB meeting, but which he freely acknowledged to Patch both before the event and after it, is that Ochoa’s successor does not speak Spanish. 

Whether that will prove to be something of a handicap for a SLO in an overwhelmingly Latino community obviously remains to be seen—as does the full extent of the community’s reaction to Bert’s new appointments.

Judging by some of the reactions that Patch has gotten so far, including in comments to previous stories about SLOs, Bert’s decision regarding Ochoa, at the very least, is unlikely to go down well in the community.

'I Can’t Believe They’re Getting Rid of Him'

“We loved Officer Ochoa and I’m really sad to hear he’s going,” Noel McCarthy, an Avenue 64 resident of Garvanza, told Patch. “He was very responsive—every time my wife or I called him, he was at our house within minutes.”

Added McCarthy: “I can’t believe they’re getting rid of him—it’s a pretty ham-handed decision, whatever the other factors might be.”

The new SLOs will begin their assignments around the second week of August.