State Parks Amping up Peace Officer Presence

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Heat Wave state park trails

In the last three to four months, the California State Parks’ Angeles District has added six new peace officers to its Malibu area jurisdictions: five new rangers and one lifeguard. 

Jerry West, Acting District Superintendent for the State Parks’ Angeles District, called the new additions “a blessing.”

“We’ve had some vacancies for quite a while in our district. We were fortunate enough to receive some new cadets out of a recent academy, and then we also had two rangers transferring to our district from other districts,” he told The Malibu Times. 

The Angeles District, which West described as “quite vast,” covers all the California State Parks in the Los Angeles Basin and the Santa Monica Mountains. The new rangers and lifeguard will be stationed at Point Mugu State Park, Leo Carrillo State Park, the Malibu Lagoon and/or at any of the Robert H. Meyer Memorial Beaches, which include El Pescador, El Matador, and La Piedra Beaches. 

“As a result of [the 2018] Woolsey [Fire], we’re limited on facilities in Malibu,” West said. So the new peace officers’ reporting location will be at Malibu Creek State Park. “We do have a small operations station at Point Mugu, but the major work station is … inland.”