CII Trustee, LAPD Captain Emada Tingirides to Lead Newly Announced Community Safety Partnership Bureau as Deputy Chief

Children’s Institute congratulates CII Trustee and soon-to-be Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides, who will lead LAPD’s newly announced Community Safety Partnership Bureau (CSP). Mayor Eric Garcetti, members of the LA City Council and LAPD Police Chief Michel Moore announced the new bureau earlier this week while emphasizing that Captain Tingirides’ new role will help transform the way LAPD approaches policing.

CSP is the signature community policing program of LAPD that began in 2011 as a relationship-based approach working in LA’s housing developments. Captain Tingirides has been part of CSP since its inception and has worked closely with Civil Rights Attorney and CSP co-founder Connie Rice to expand the program. A UCLA report published earlier this year credited CSP with helping to reduce violent crime and increase trust with residents.

During the press conference, Mayor Garcetti complimented Captain Tingirides’ commitment to CSP and said that the expansion of the program will ensure the community has a greater say in how it is policed. Captain Tingirides will oversee CSP as its own bureau where officers commit to five-year assignments to better understand the neighborhood and build relationships with residents.

“It’s a dramatic step in that … we’re moving squarely towards the core of our policing philosophy — a model that is about co-owning public safety,” said Garcetti. The mayor highlighted CSP as an effective step to police reform, as protests have called for LAPD funding to be cut and reallocated.

Captain Tingirides said examples like the UCLA report show that the relationship building by CSP officers across the community is effective in creating trust which translates to crime reduction. This relationship extends to nonprofits like CII, which helped inspire CSP strategies.

Captain Tingirides said that during the early years of CSP, she met with CII program and care coordinators in Watts to plant community gardens and read stories to children. She said she was inspired to have CSP officers engaged in these types of activities, and it opened her eyes to all of the work aimed at improving the lives of children in the community. Captain Tingirides eventually joined CII’s Board of Trustees in 2014, which has led to a close partnership between CII and CSP.

“The fact that there is an understanding of what CII offers allows our officers to do their job better,” Captain Tingirides said. When CII opens the new Frank Gehry-designed Watts Campus in 2021, CSP will have an office inside the building, which will bring important community initiatives closer together.

CII President & CEO Martine Singer said her insight and perspective have been invaluable as CII has increased its reach and impact in Watts and other parts of South LA.

“Captain Tingirides’ compassion and experience is unmatched, which makes her the perfect person to lead the Community Safety Partnership Bureau,” Singer said. “The residents of Watts truly appreciate the impact she has made in this community.”

Captain Tingirides is a Watts native and becomes the second Black female LAPD Deputy Police Chief. At the State of the Union address in 2015, President Obama honored Captain Tingirides, along with her husband Phil Tingirides, then the captain of LAPD Southeast Division, for their community policing work.

With protests calling for reallocating funding away from LAPD following the death of George Floyd, Captain Tingirides said CSP’s focus on partnership highlights how policing can be one piece of solving the challenges communities face.