Following a holiday weekend marred with violence, Hollenbeck officers quietly move into new Boyle Heights headquarters.

A long delayed move into new headquarters only added to the workload for the officers of the Los Angeles Police Department Department (LAPD) assigned to Hollenbeck Division. Since the Fourth of July weekend, a series of shootings have occurred in the Boyle Heights area. A Hollenbeck homicide detective told EGP News that although it is common for crime to increase as the weather temperature increases, the shootings did catch their attention.

One high profile incident that did not produce a homicide was a confrontation between a man with a 'replica gun' and an LAPD police officer. Just before 9:30 p.m. on July 5, Officer Jonathan Maldonado parked his private vehicle on First and Soto Street to enter a local store. A man identified as Octavio Blanco approached the off-duty officer, still seated in his car, and removed what appeared to be a gun. Maldonado fired several shots at Blanco who ran from the scene. Officers arrested him shortly after.

Earlier that morning, a young man in his 20's was killed at a house party on the 400 block of Estudillo Avenue, near Fourth and Lorena Street. The victim was shot once in the head around 1:30 a.m. A homicide detective with the Hollenbeck Station said police have arrested a suspect. On July 6, Roberto Alcazar Valencia, was shot-to-death in a Boyle Heights home in the 700 block of North Soto Street, near Cesar Chavez Avenue.

According to an earlier report published July 9 in EGP News, witnesses inside the home at the time of the shooting indicated that the suspect burst in and shot Valencia because he was in another gang. Police have labeled the murder as a gang-related attack. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Araceli Negrete of the Hollenbeck Division at (323) 526-3676. Last week, on July 9, Jacob Jacabo, 27, was shot in the 3300 block of Pico Boulevard in Boyle Heights.

The recent string of homicides makes the first few weeks of July much deadlier than the entire month of June. According to the current COMPSTAT report posted on the LAPD Web site, there were three homicides reported in the Hollenbeck Division for the time-period of June 7, 2009 through the Fourth of July weekend. Overall, prior to the recent surge, 10 murders have been reported in 2009. This figure is up slightly from the same time-period in 2008 when eight murders were reported. As of print time, EGP News was unable to obtain the latest COMPSTAT numbers with officers from Hollenbeck Division including the recent murders since the Fourth of July weekend.

The sudden burst in violence does not make the officer's transition into their new headquarters easier. A homicide detective told EPG News that most of his information concerning one recent murder was still stored in moving boxes. He said he had yet to receive new business cards with his updated information.

Such a large transition scheduled at a time officers acknowledge is traditionally prone to an increase in violent crime poses at least a temporary inconvience. One perceived inconvience that may no longer be an issue for Hollenbeck-based officers was the limited parking spaces at the old station. For years, an odd configuration of parked LAPD cruisers in the middle of First Street was common. Although he said the move into a larger station is nice, the homicide detective quickly offered one potential concern for officers. He said now that officers are no longer cramped in their previous station, they will have to work harder to maintain the communication between units.

The new era in Hollenbeck officially occurred with the first official roll call at 5 p.m. on July 11. A formal grand opening event for the community has not been set at this moment,

The new facility, located at 2111 E. First Street is several blocks away from the old location. A new phone number, (323) 342-4100, is now effective for the Hollenbeck Station. In addition to a new headquarters, a free standing parking structure will finally provide officers plenty of space to store their patrol cars.