As part of a plan to rotate the Ventura County Community College District lieutenants, Lt. Gregory Beckley is leaving Moorpark College on Nov. 1 to serve as supervisor of the Ventura Community College Police Station, according to Moorpark College President Luis Sanchez.

“Part of it is to expose the local chief of police to the different college cultures because there are three distinct cultures,” Sanchez said. “Another reason is to avoid too much complacency. My guess is [that the department is] trying to see if there’s a better alignment between chief and staff.”

Beckley joined the VCCCD police department in 2008 and became the supervisor of the Moorpark College Police Station in 2011. Prior to that, Beckley worked for 33 years running the narcotic enforcement division of the Los Angeles Police Department,

“[At the LAPD], matters of life and death were a daily occurrence,” Beckley said.

When Beckley arrived at Moorpark, narcotic activity was prevalent on campus. However, after the installation of a large number of security cameras, there has been a drastic decrease in those illegal activities, said Beckley.

“We have been able to increase the safety of the campus over these past five years,” Beckley said. “We installed 250 surveillance cameras … you may not see us in person, but we are there.”

In 2015, Beckley was nominated by the city of Moorpark as their 2015 Man of the Year as a result of saving a woman from being hit by a train after she lost control of her car, which flipped multiple times and came to rest on the tracks.

Beckley and his team feel satisfied with the work that they have done in regards to improving and upgrading the security around campus.

“It is like raising a child and rearing them through school and into adulthood and now I have to turn it over to someone else,” Beckley said.

Lt. Cesar Romero, the current supervisor of the Oxnard College Police Station, will be taking over Beckley’s position as of Nov. 1, according to Sanchez.