Bidding Farewell to Police Chief Al Lanning

I’d like to congratulate Chief Lanning on his well deserved retirement.  I hope all of La Mesa will join me to bid farewell to the chief who has served La Mesa with integrity and respect for this community for over 3 decades.

A few years ago, I decided to create a web site dedicated to crime prevention and awareness for the citizens of La Mesa.  Shortly after launching the site, I ran into  Mayor Madrid while having dinner in the village. I introduced myself and informed him about the new web site I had created.  He thanked me for doing this as a service to our community and said he’d check it out.

The next morning, I promptly received a phone call from Chief Lanning asking if we could meet and talk about the site. I was a little worried that he would ask me to exclude certain things from the web site but that was not the case at all.  Instead, he offered me additional resources to include on the site. We discussed many of the local crime concerns and discussed ideas on how to help grow the current Neighborhood Watch program. We also discussed new ways to inform the community about current crimes as they are happening. Since then, the LMPD has implemented the Nixle alert system using email and text messages, a free service to anyone who signs up.  If you aren't currently getting these alerts, you can sign up here.

My personal experiences with Chief Lanning have been very positive.  I’ve seen him speak at many different Neighborhood Forums as well as city council meetings. I’ve seen him deliver unfavorable crime statistics while keeping his cool.  I’ve seen him speak eloquently to the students at La Mesa Middle School about the Safe Routes to School program. I’ve seen him patiently respond to the crime concerns of La Mesa citizens, even though some were a little hot under the collar. I hope our next chief will be as approachable and willing to work with the community as Chief Lanning has been.

Thank you for all of the support you have extended to my endeavors as I continually try to encourage La Mesans to be more vigilant and to become more involved.

Enjoy your retirement chief.