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Published on 04/15/1996 All articles from this issue

City's newest police officer from Los Altos Hills

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

For Lara Walker, joining the Los Altos Police Department April 1 was like coming home.The city's newest police officer grew up in Los Altos Hills, attended Pinewood School and graduated from the Menlo School in Atherton in 1983."There's no question in my mind that this is where I'd like to spend the rest of my law enforcement career," Walker said. "I was impressed from day one with the professionalism."After she finished the police academy in San Jose, Walker began her first law enforcement job as a police officer January 1995 in Fremont. She stayed there for six months."It was not my kind of police department. Fremont had its problems with gangs and drugs. My whole idea of policing came from what Los Altos does -- community oriented policing. I didn't see that in Fremont."(Here) it's an attitude. These officers care about the community. They're accessible, approachable, interested."When Walker began in Fremont, she said she wasn't sure if she had to be tougher than the men to be accepted. "The need is to prove yourself, whether you're a man or a woman."I get the job done," she said. "I'd much rather talk than fight. I'd rather talk someone into submission."It was in college that Walker said she found her voice, at a woman's college. She graduated from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., in 1987 with a degree in political science. Wheaton became coeducational in 1988.From Wheaton she went to Stanford and earned a master's degree, also in political science, in 1989.Walker said she likes working with the public and with the community."We're lucky here. We have a chief who is very involved with the community, and her concerns are known, traffic being a big one. So each of us feels a responsibility to address this on a daily basis."Nobody wants a traffic citation. But you have a lot of kids out playing..."Walker watches stop signs near schools. And she's big on seat belts."I like to see kids properly belted in or in car seats."When walker isn't working, she is more of a Gap person than a Nordstrom woman, she said. "Sort of casual." She reads mysteries, especially those by Patricia Cornwall whose heroine is the chief medical examiner of Virginia.Officer Mark Laranjo, Walker's primary training officer, said, "Police departments have their own personalities. There's a lot of room to have more women in the profession. They bring a different attitude that is good. Some people are intimidated by men and get all puffed up. Females bring a softer side and can bring people back down to earth."The group (of officer's) who's here now, we're getting a lot of people who are sticking around. They like it here."There are a lot of neat changes, our dog, computers for the cars. It's an exciting time for the department."And for Walker."They hired me, and I couldn't be happier."