Soledad PD rocks community policing in Monterey County’s first Police Lip Sync Challenge

Short link to this post: http://bit.ly/SoledadPDLipSync

Soledad Police Department jumped in on the nationwide police lip syn challenge—to my knowledge, the first Monterey County police department to participate. Kudos to Chief Eric Sills and Soledad PD, and to videographer Jason Camp. All the officers volunteered their own time to make the video, which was filmed at various Soledad area locations.

A couple video highlights, perhaps especially of interest to non-locals who are unaware: 4:00 reflects the heritage of over 70% of residents, and the primary language that over 50% of residents speak at home. And yes, Soledad is in the beautiful Salinas Valley—Salad Bowl of America—so those scenes at 5:00 are authentic too. As for what the officers are toasting in the video, you can decide if that’s a likely common scene! 

No bicycles in the video, which is posted below, but you can see this bicycling Soledad officer and some of Soledad PD’s bike-love in Bicycling Monterey’s Cops on Bikes.

Soledad PD’s gratitudes for help with the video include the staff of Mission Soledad / La Mision de Maria Santisima, Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, the Soledad High School Dance Team, the Soledad Warriors’ peewee football and cheerleading teams, and the Starbucks location in Soledad.

For more about the Soledad PD lip sync video, refer to the Californian’s 10/17/18 story, “La Chona? Who Let the Dogs Out? Neon Moon? Which song did Soledad police lip sync best?” http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2018/10/17/soledad-police-join-lip-sync-challenge-whos-next/1675884002/

For those unaware, Chief Sills is fluent in Spanish and taught a basic Spanish course for many Soledad PD officers (and for some Gonzales, Greenfield, and King City officers). Earlier, Sills earned a B.A. from San Jose State University, where he majored in Spanish. He also spent time in Spain and helped the San Jose Police Department create its Spanish courses for officers. Sills is a lecturer for SJSU’s Department of Justice Studies: http://www.sjsu.edu/justicestudies/our-department/our-people/index.html

Some related stories:

• “Police learn Spanish to better serve their community”: http://www.kion546.com/news/top-stories/police-learn-to-speak-spanish-to-better-serve-their-community/453495685
• “South Monterey County police learn to speak ‘español'”: http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2018/03/02/south-monterey-county-police-learn-speak-spanish/383342002/
• “Local officers sharpen their Spanish skills”: http://greenfieldnews.com/article/local-officers-sharpen-their-spanish-skills

To learn more about community policing…

You may wish to start with the National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) document “Strengthening the Relationship between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color”: http://nnscommunities.org/uploads/StrengtheningtheRelationshipBetweenLECommunitiesofColor-DevelopinganAgendaforAction.pdf

For more on the Bicycling Monterey site about Monterey County law enforcement officers, start with Constables of the Peace – Cops on Bikes in Monterey County. Also refer to this site’s Constables of the Peace (Cops) category.

For more on the Bicycling Monterey site about South County communities, start with http://bit.ly/SlnsVlySouthCounty. Included are local history tips too, among them, info on the 1791 mission in the lip sync video.