Long Beach Police Department had a 4-hour warrant clearing event at the PCC parking lot on Sept.15.
The warrant clearing event was for individuals that had an outstanding traffic or non-violent misdemeanor warrant issued by the Long Beach Police Department.
The event was to clear up all the warrants and let people know that they can come in and take care of their warrants. There were individuals that didn’t know they had a warrant and just wanted to check.
This was the first time the police department did a warrant clearing event. The Long Beach Police Department chose a city college because they wanted to reach out to everybody in the city of Long Beach.
However, people were skeptical of the event.
Commander of the Detectives Division from the Police Department Paul LeBaron said, “We figured if we did it outside people would be able to watch and see that no one was getting taken away in handcuffs and that really they were coming in and getting a new ticket and walking away.”
Anybody that had a warrant and wanted to get it taken care of attended the event.
Detective in the vice unit Chris Brammer attended the warrant clearing event and spoke to individuals.
Brammer said, “Doing the program on a Saturday was beneficial for people to come.”
People were more open with their schedules to come on a Saturday to clear their warrants.
132 people showed up to the event to check if they had warrants while people heard about the event throughout social media and word of mouth.
Assistant professor of public services Annahita Mahdavi said, “We need to have more kinds of these events to reconnect and to have that definition and purpose of protect, to serve and protect.”
The warrant clearing event is expected to happen again.
There has to be a handful of authority there to do their job just in case they run into people that need to go to jail. Police officers have to be in place if people have a serious or felony warrant.