Lieutenant II Amira Eppolito has been employed with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for almost 25 years and worked a variety of assignments during her tenure. In her current assignment, she is assigned to Training Division as the Officer In-Charge of the Department’s recruit program. Most recently, she served Recruitment and Employment Division as the Officer in Charge of the Recruitment Section where her primary focus was or the marketing and diversity recruitment for police officers to include oversight of various assistance programs and steps in the hiring process.
Amira’s assignments with the LAPD include being a Watch Commander responsible for field operations and personnel during her shift, a field investigator, an auditor for police performance accountability audits, as well as a researcher and writer at Planning and Research Division. Her tenure includes 13 years as a detective and 16 years of supervisory experience.
Lieutenant Eppolito has also served as the Presenter for Robert Presley Institute of Criminal Investigation (ICI) program in Los Angeles during her assignment as the Officer in Charge of the Detective Training Unit in Training Division. In this assignment, her responsibilities included oversight of ICI Detective Symposium, ICI courses and contracts, gang, and other investigative training for detectives. To this end, she was responsible for the coordination of over 35 courses and specialty symposiums and conferences. Her participation on the ICI Detective Symposium Committee has resulted in four offerings of the 24-hour course in Los Angeles with over 600 investigators Statewide in attendance. In 2013, she received the distinguished ICI Founders Award by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
In 2009, Lieutenant Eppolito successfully completed the requirements of the Master Instructor Development Course. During this program, Lieutenant Eppolito identified a need for training specific to detective supervisors and designed a three-day course, titled “Detective Supervisory Operations Course” to meet the need for such training. She is also on the instructor cadre in the LAPD Leadership Program and the Peer Support Course, teaching leadership concepts and emotional intelligence in law enforcement. She has designed the curriculum for LAPD’s Interview and Interrogation Course, Police Science and Leadership’s Building the Community Leader Course and the ICI Human Trafficking Course. Lieutenant Eppolito actively participates as an evaluator in POST’s Quality Assessment Program to aid presenters in their course design and instructional methods for the POST certified course(s) they present.
Lieutenant Eppolito graduated from California Polytechnic University, Pomona with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1995. She is also a graduate of the LAPD Leadership, Sherman Block Institute Leadership and POST Management Courses. She has served on the Steering Committee for LAPD’s Peer Support Program and the Resiliency Task Force, which she was awarded the Police Meritorious Service Medal on May 2, 2020 for her efforts toward addressing officer suicides and organizing an annual walk. Lieutenant Eppolito also currently serves as an associate board member on the Los Angeles Federal Credit Union and as the treasurer of the Los Angeles Woman Police Officer and Associates (LAWPOA) organization.
