Burbank police worked in a cooperative effort with colleagues in the Los Angeles Police Department to focus an operation to combat property crimes in an area of southwestern Burbank and the adjoining city of North Hollywood, directly west of Burbank’s border.
During the evening hours of July 17, Operation Blue Knights II went into motion, with 20 BPD personnel working targets in the southwestern area of Burbank. At the same time, 30 members of the LAPD were focused on areas on their side of the cities’ border, said Burbank Police.
Members of the San Gabriel Valley AB 109 Task Force (Tri-cities Team) also conducted “roll back” checks at additional locations where evidence or stolen property might be located.
“A recent analysis of crime trends in Burbank revealed that property crimes have dominated the crime spectrum for the first half of 2014,” said Sgt. Darin Ryburn of the Burbank Police Department. “Of particular note has been the targeting of unattended motor vehicles for items of value that had been left inside the passenger compartments.”
“Crime analysts on Burbank’s border in Los Angeles noticed a similar trend,” he continued. “In an effort to aggressively address this issue, personnel of the Burbank Police Department joined with their Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) colleagues in planning Operation Blue Knights II, the second operation of its kind in the past three months.”
Operation Blue Knights I, conducted in May 2014, resulted in the arrest of 13 felony suspects and the recovery of two firearms.
“The main concept of the operation was to provide heavy deployment of police personnel on each side of the border in their respective cities,” explained Ryburn. “In this way, criminal activity would be suppressed, yet with officers deployed on each side of the border, the criminal element would not be able to merely slip away to the adjoining city.”
Representatives from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the Los Angeles County Probation Department assisted the BPD and LAPD.
Operation Blue Knights II netted 21 felony arrests on charges that included narcotics violations, identity theft, violation of restraining orders and included individuals who had been released from custody under the Post-Release Community Supervision program. Four people also were cited for misdemeanors.
Although the multi-agency operation was a “success,” according to police, the BPD reminds Burbank citizens they can help reduce property theft opportunities by locking and securing cars and houses and keeping property out of sight.
