TREXPO Conference to Feature Internationally Recognized Gang Expert Sgt. Richard Valdemar
LONG BEACH, Calif. – On Tuesday, March 20, Los Angeles County Sheriff (LASD) (ret.) Sgt. Richard Valdemar, one of the nation’s leading authorities on gangs and career criminals, will participate in a Campus Safety Conference/TREXPO West 2007 panel discussion called “Gangs in Schools”, covering what school police, administrators, municipal law enforcement, communities, and city and county officials can do to reduce gang activity in and around campuses.
Valdemar, along with the other panelists, will also explain what causes young people to develop positive and negative attitudes toward gangs and local police. The panel will discuss how schools, communities, campus police and local law enforcement can prevent and respond to gang activity.
For most of his 33 years with the LASD, Valdemar was involved in combating L.A. gangs. After completing the FBI academy, he served four years in the custody division where he first was exposed to prison gangs. In the LASD, where he was assigned to intelligence, he routinely encountered hard core gang violence. Since 1985 he was a member of the California (Prison) Gang Task Force and was part of the Federal Metropolitan Gang Task Force for more than 10 years. In 1978, Valdemar was selected as one of the original 12 founding deputies who formed the Sheriff’s Department’s “Operation Safe Streets” anti-gang unit.
Valdemar provided technical assistance and supervised the Hispanic and African-American gang members used in the Michael Jackson music video “Beat It”. He was a technical advisor for the movies “Drug Wars – The Kiki Camerena Story” and “A Man Apart” staring Vin Diesel and Lorenz Tate. In 2006 he was featured on the History Channel for segments on “Military Policemen in Combat” and the “History of the Aryan Brotherhood” prison gang. Valdemar also appeared in several interviews, conducted by Emmy Award winning host Leslie Dutton, on the independent, educational, news cable program, Full Disclosure Network™.
Sgt. Rick Ornelas, who is with the east division of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD), and Tony Ostos, manager for the Gang Resistance Is Paramount (GRIP) program in Paramount, Calif., will also be participating in the panel discussion.
The Campus Safety Conference will take place on Tuesday, March 20 at TREXPO West 2007 (March 19-22) in Long Beach, Calif. Campus police chiefs and public safety directors, municipal, county, state and federal law enforcement officers, as well as school administrators, superintendents and principals, are all invited to attend.
Click here to register.
Additional information on the Campus Safety Conference and TREXPO West can be found online at www.TREXPO.com.
If you appreciated this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!
Related Content
Leading in Turbulent Times: Effective Campus Public Safety Leadership for the 21st Century
This new webcast will discuss how campus public safety leaders can effectively incorporate Clery Act, Title IX, customer service, “helicopter” parents, emergency notification, town-gown relationships, brand management, Greek Life, student recruitment, faculty, and more into their roles and develop the necessary skills to successfully lead their departments. Register today to attend this free webcast!
