{"id":61649,"date":"2025-11-20T06:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61649\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:52:10","slug":"from-nickname-to-reality-the-rainbow-district-is-made-official-by-the-city-of-west-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61649\/","title":{"rendered":"From nickname to reality, the Rainbow District is made official by the City of West Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before Fanny Lapkin became Captain of West Hollywood Sheriff\u2019s Station in August, she was a longtime advisor and mentor for the county\u2019s deputy explorer program<\/a>: a training and career development opportunity for young adults interested in law enforcement. \u201cI probably had eight or nine of \u2014 I call [them] my kids,\u201d Lapkin told the Blade. When some of these mentees became deputies, she felt like a \u201cmama.\u201d Lapkin brings this nurturing approach to her leadership, where she hopes to build deeper community trust and humanize her staff members. \u201cPeople have the misconception that we\u2019re machines and that we\u2019re robots. We are human beings,\u201d said Lapkin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lapkin first ventured into law enforcement as a college student, where a casual walk into the East Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Station for volunteer credit led to a seven-year-long stint. As a volunteer, she assisted deputies, participated in neighborhood watch, and became involved with safety measures for local community members. \u201cI fell in love with the job,\u201d said Lapkin. She officially took on a law enforcement role in 1997 and was eventually assigned to the Santa Clarita Valley\u2019s Sheriff\u2019s Station, where she worked as a community relations deputy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, Lapkin began working at the West Hollywood Sheriff\u2019s Station, climbing the ranks as service area sergeant to service area lieutenant before her most recent promotion to station captain in August. Lapkin says that she and fellow station staff pushed for LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum for peace officer standards and training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September 2018, AB 2504 was passed, which required the state\u2019s commission on peace officer standards and training to develop training material around LGBTQ+ identity<\/a> and create inclusive workplaces. In 2024, AB 2621 was chaptered into law, which required the commission to also create and implement instruction on hate crimes against specific groups<\/a>, including LGBTQ+ communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, Lapkin hopes to continue building trust with marginalized community members, especially LGBTQ+ individuals afraid to seek help through law enforcement. The Blade sat down with the captain to discuss her perspective and approach.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do you hope to foster effective relationships between the sheriff\u2019s station and community members?<\/p>\n

Honestly, [it\u2019s about] being available, being present. Joining Neighborhood Watch, having that open communication, making sure that you know the residents, whether it be from our LGBT community or visitors. We make sure that our deputies have the necessary training to be able to deal with different community members, whether direct leaders, whether business owners, or public safety commissions. Being available for them \u2014 I think that\u2019s the number one thing, is just making yourself available to have those conversations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also, having that transparency \u2014 if something does happen, let\u2019s talk about what happened. In some cases, we won\u2019t be able to discuss for obvious reasons, but it\u2019s having that open communication and making sure that our community feels that they\u2019re safe and that their voice is heard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s having the conversation: How can we come together to find a resolution for [issues]? People come from different directions to try and resolve a problem. So my thing is, everybody has a seat at the table. From being a volunteer to a deputy to moving up the ranks, I\u2019ve always lived by that. I\u2019ve had amazing mentors who have always had that open-door policy, [where] every community member has a seat at the table. Come and tell us what your concerns are, and we\u2019ll tell you how we can fix them. There are going to be times when we cannot do something about it, because it doesn\u2019t rise to the level of a crime. But we can tell you, without giving you legal advice, how you can try to resolve something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How have you seen community issues and safety shift since you started working in the West Hollywood Sheriff\u2019s station in 2019? How do you hope to address all of these shifts?<\/p>\n

2019 kind of put us all in a bubble. But again, it\u2019s just having that open communication and making yourself available, going to local events, participating in outreach, and just making sure that our community members, whomever they are \u2014 our Russian community, our Jewish community, our LGBT community \u2014 that they feel that they\u2019re being heard, that we listen to them, and we understand that each of them have unique needs. So it\u2019s trying to understand that and fostering a great environment where they\u2019re comfortable enough to come to us, whether it be telling us how wonderful our deputies are, or also telling us they didn\u2019t like the service that they received.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If I get a concern, [like] somebody saying, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t like the way this deputy handled the call.\u201d I look at every single body-worn camera footage. I listen to the phone calls. And if it\u2019s something that we could do better, we fix it, right? And if it\u2019s something that maybe was misinterpretation\u2026I tell [deputies]: take the extra two minutes to listen to our community, because you\u2019re going to learn something by just slowing yourself down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, our patrol deputies are under tight constraints. We are understaffed. They are working the extra overtime, but\u2026we\u2019re not machines, we\u2019re not robots. We\u2019re humans. And sometimes, the human nature kind of steps in at times. But we have to make sure that we teach them how to find the balance.<\/p>\n

What are the unique needs and challenges West Hollywood communities face today?<\/p>\n

The challenge is just making sure that our community trusts us [and] that our community is comfortable enough to come to us when they have a concern, when they\u2019re victims. Especially with the LGBTQ community or even our transgender community, they\u2019re a little nervous about going to law enforcement, or they feel that they\u2019re going to be victimized again. That\u2019s one thing that [we see] as a priority. We want to make sure that they don\u2019t feel that, and that they do feel that they\u2019re being heard, and that their safety is one of our concerns. We don\u2019t care whether you\u2019re LGBTQ, transgender, Jewish, or Russian \u2014 we\u2019re going to treat you equally. If you\u2019re a victim of a crime, we\u2019re going to assist you and help you. I think we just want to make sure that our community members feel that they can come to us and we\u2019re going to advocate for them, [that] we\u2019re going to be a good partner.<\/p>\n

What are the active ways that you and the station are building that kind of trust, specifically with LGBTQ+ and trans community members? How can they have that open dialogue with you and the station to feel safer?<\/p>\n

Because there was a need for our transgender community\u2026we started with a quarterly meeting, but we moved them to every six months, where we have a meeting and we invite any member of the community to come in and sit down and talk to us. We included our California Department of Justice partners. We included the trans Latina community. Our LGBTQ commission came out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something that we\u2019re trying to figure out. What\u2019s going to be the best time to have these open dialogues? It\u2019s a town hall roundtable. Tell us what your concerns are, and we\u2019ll tell you how we can fix them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Fanny Lapkin became Captain of West Hollywood Sheriff\u2019s Station in August, she was a longtime advisor and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,48,52,51,37291,19099,19100,2434,47,50,49,37292,12084,37293,37294,655],"class_list":{"0":"post-61649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-featured","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-lgbtq-landmarks","13":"tag-lgbtq-representation","14":"tag-lgbtq-visibility","15":"tag-lgbtq","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-mayor-chelsea-lee-byers","20":"tag-rainbow-district","21":"tag-rainbow-district-west-hollywood","22":"tag-visit-west-hollywood","23":"tag-west-hollywood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}