Representing fitness, fun and first responders for a little physical competition, a Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station detective brought home two gold medals from the recent World Police and Fire Games in Birmingham, Alabama.
The international competition, which turned 40 this year, welcomes law enforcement officers and firefighters from all over the world, with past games being held in Spain, Canada, Australia and China. It welcomed 10,0000 competitors, according to the biennial games’ website.
A longtime presence at the SCV Sheriff’s Station, Detective Stephen Westerfield’s discipline and dedication have helped one of the SCV’s very own to the winner’s circle. He competed against other first responders in the 40 to 45 age group for the 230- to 260-pound weight class.
“Before promoting to detective, Westerfield served Santa Clarita as a field training officer and operations deputy,” according to a social media post from Deputy Robert Jensen, spokesman for the SCV Sheriff’s Station. “Today, he continues to raise the bar and strengthen our station (both literally and figuratively) by investigating crimes, managing the SCV Station gym, and helping his partners prioritize their health and fitness.”
Westerfield managed to grab the gold in Birmingham despite not even lifting his personal best, according to the recent social media post from the station, which took a break from telling residents about its latest operations or crime-prevention tips to tout Westerfield’s achievements.
“World Champion … Detective Stephen Westerfield brought home two gold medals from the World Police and Fire Games in Birmingham, Alabama, after a 458-pound bench press and 607-pound deadlift, setting a world record in his age and weight class,” Jensen wrote.
Jensen also noted on Westerfield’s behalf that those lifts weren’t even Westerfield’s most impressive. That would be a 640-pound deadlift at the U.S. Police & Fire Games in San Diego, which was good enough for gold and a California state record. He also claimed gold there with a 441-pound bench press
Westerfield currently works in the Detective Bureau, primarily investigating assaults and robberies, according to recent court records from his investigation.
During Westerfield’s nearly 20-year career with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, he has spent roughly a decade at the SCV station, where he has been involved in thousands of arrests throughout the course of his career, he said in a sworn statement accompanying a recent search-warrant request.
“While working patrol I was assigned to a crime enforcement team where I conducted parole and probation searches and served search warrants for violent crimes, gang crimes and weapons offenses,” he wrote in a statement describing his law enforcement expertise. “I also worked as a field training officer for over six years. Prior to working patrol, I worked at the East Maximum security and North Medium security jails (at North County Correctional Facility in Castaic) for six years.”
Origin story
Westerfield said he’s always enjoyed weightlifting, recalling advice his dad gave him about doing pull-ups as a little kid: They’d help him hit homeruns.
Westerfield went on to play some baseball at Moorpark College, but he said he began to take weightlifting more seriously once he started training to join the Sheriff’s Department.
When he began working as a deputy in the jails back in 2008, working out, even on shift, was encouraged, he said. He was lucky to be mentored by some of the older deputies, and a sense of camaraderie and competition emerged that he enjoyed.
There were also more pressing motivations for his gains at the bench press and squat, which came from the reality of working in a maximum-security environment around dangerous inmates, he said.
The reality set in after an honest conversation he had with a 6-foot, 240-pound inmate who was in custody fighting a murder charge while staying in the dorm Westerfield watched, he said.
“And he told me, ‘Hey dude, one day, you know, we’re gonna have to fight, and I’m gonna have to hurt you,’” the detective recalled. “He was straight up about it. He was like, ‘You’re gonna have to put on some size, dude. Because we’re gonna have to fight one day, and you’re not big enough.’”
Westerfield described the conversation as “eye-opening,” and also one he took to heart.
He continued to lift when he got to Santa Clarita a little over 10 years ago, and started taking part in a department-wide competition that focused on the bench press, squat and dead lift.
Eventually, a former sergeant he worked with said, “‘Hey, you should check out the Police and Fire Games in San Diego.’”
That’s where Westerfield picked up his first gold medal back in 2021, he said.
