After yearlong pilot, LA Sheriff plans to expand ‘virtual deputy’ program

At a civilian oversight commission meeting on Thursday, representatives from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said they want to expand their “virtual deputy” program, a yearlong pilot project that aimed to alleviate wait times and to ensure law enforcement resources were readily available.

The program uses Microsoft Power Automate, allowing non-urgent calls to be handled by a form that collect information about the question or crime being reported. It automatically notifies supervisors who can verify that there is no threat of harm and that deputies are not missing emergency calls for service that require immediate response.

The system allows residents to schedule virtual meetings with a deputy sheriff to report non-emergency crimes or offenses that are not in progress and do not require immediate police response, or to ask law enforcement related questions.

“Virtual deputy was basically born out of complaints from the public about response times and nowadays 21st century problems need to have some 21st century solutions. One of those is using technology,” Joshua Bardon, operations captain of Palmdale Station, told the commission during a presentation of the program.

Since its inception a year ago, Bardon said, the virtual deputy program has received more than 1,000 submissions and processed 400 reports, saving an estimated $25,000 in operations costs. He said it reduced response times by almost 50%, from 206 minutes down to 94 minutes. Nine stations use the program, with plans to expand to more over the next year.

Bardon said the most common types of calls the program receives are identity theft, burglaries, theft from vehicle and vandalism — what he calls a “who don’t know,” a variation on “whodunit” crimes.

“It’s a non-workable type call in which we don’t have very much suspect information, nobody’s getting harmed, nobody’s getting hurt,” Bardon explained, adding that such calls are more convenience for officers and civilians by allowing them to schedule meetings, rather than waiting hours for the next available deputy to arrive.

Though successful, Bardon said, the program has not been without challenges.

“It’s not personable. You’re not having the engagement, you’re not having a conversation,” he said. “A lot of our community members would rather speak to a deputy and vet out the process with a deputy versus the standardized black and white form and just putting information in there.”

Bardon said he hopes that to eventually integrate the virtual deputy program with the department’s centralized dispatch system.

“We’re trying to get the most out of our resources that we can,” he said. “We’re also able to use staffing members that are no longer able to go in the public, whether it be for an injury, sickness, you name it — we’re getting more use out of our personnel by using this type of technology.”