Violent crime continues to increase in Santa Ana at an unbelievable rate, yet police staffing remains far below minimum staffing levels. What is inexperienced SAPD Police Chief Carlos Rojas doing to address this? Nothing. What is our overpaid City Manager David Cavazos doing to address this? Nothing. Why do they refuse to staff “Patrol Officers” to their recommended levels and the levels they have been budgeted for? And why doesn’t our City Council take action? I mean besides giving bonuses to Cavazos and his fellow city executives.
There are serious safety concerns to families, children and the business community of Santa Ana. Since Rojas took over in 2012, shootings are up 556%, according to a new report that I looked at today (which is about how much Cavazos is overpaid!) In 2012 in a six-month period (from January to June) there were 32 shootings as compared to the year-to-date in 2016, when there have been over 200 shootings in our city!
Take a look at the chart above and see for yourself what has happened in Santa Ana since Cavazos and Rojas took power.
Innocent victims are being caught in the crossfire now. Remember that just a few weeks ago, on June 19, a food truck vendor was caught up in the gang crossfire and tragically killed at 1800 South Evergreen. Other innocents have been shot but he was the first to die. There will surely be more.
I am told on good authority that senior SAPD police officers are fleeing the department. That never used to happen under former Chief of Police Paul Walters! But it is happening now under Rojas. The SAPD has gone from being one of the top police departments in the country to an understaffed and demoralized disaster.
Fortunately we will have a chance in November to dump Council Members Roman Reyna and Vince Sarmiento. And Angie Amezcua has done us the immense favor of deciding not to run for re-election. We can change the City Council majority – provided that good candidates run against Reyna and Sarmiento.
The sooner that Cavazos and Rojas are fired the better. We need to take back our city!
Innocen truck driver!?? He was far from innocent .
He was affiliated with gang members and would hide them in his truck from police . Lastly , sell druga to them .get you story straight!!!
He’s not here to defend himself now is he?
That is an incredible statistic. Clearly leadership needs to be responsible.
Its not lost on me that among all the “community policing” and progang rhetoric at the Voice Of OC, this is not mentioned.
The whole city council is responsible for this. They allowed the SAPD to go down from 400 officers to about 280 to save money for stupid projects like that trolley. There are approximately 7-9 officers working dayshift patrol for a city as big and as dense as SA. They keep taking officers out for desk jobs like Homeland Security and computers where a young college student (and cheaper) could handle paperwork. It takes about 1.5 – 2 years from the time the recruiting process starts and the officer (if he/she graduates) passes the field training program. You just cant take someone and put him out there. Instead they hire Cavazos for all that money and gave him several bonuses. The chief is responsible for a lot but he cant hire officers if the city does not approve it and provides the cash. SAPD didn’t have pay increases for over 8 years to help out the city. When the city finally gave a raise, half of it went to pay for the increase on medical. That’s why many officers have retired and other went to the DA’s office or Anaheim PD. IDIOTS!
And it’s even worse for the school police, who are also sworn officers. They keep watch over 64 sites within the school district, so anything that happens at a school district site is their jurisdiction. They are the lowest paid police out there and it’s terrible. Since the homeless problem keeps increasing, so do break-ins at school sites….they like to sleep there and have access to water and good hiding places. Sometimes you can even see tents in the school fields….
You can ad the increasing difficulty in hiring police officers nowadays. Finding qualified people wasn’t hard in the old days when 300 people would show up for 3 jobs. Today, no one wants to be a cop. It is difficult to get 300 applicants of any caliber, period. Tack on to that the fact that every law enforcement agency is clamoring for qualified applicants, why would anyone want to come to one of the former “safest cities in America” to come work and be shot at. At one time, SAPD was the highest paid department in Orange County. I haven’t checked lately but, I doubt that is the case now.
Anonymous:
I know that from first hand experience the Santa Ana Police Department was one of the top police departments in this country and it’s members were damned proud to serve there. IN the mid 1980’s through 1990’s, average patrol staffing on day shift was anywhere from 16-24 officers and on swing shift and graveyard, there were as many as 40-50 officers working the field with the over lap of the shifts.
It is a travesty that staffing levels have fallen to where they have and the bottom line is that you can’t have a safe city and lower crime without sufficient police personnel, in uniform and in the field to provide that visible presence to deter crime and arrest individuals responsible for it. Where’s there’s an absence of police, crime will run rampant and that’s what’s happening in Santa Ana. Very sad!
Did everyone forget they voted for Prop 47? Here it is, the well thought out plan. Let’s let all the non violent offenders out of jail, and let’s lower narcotics possession to a misdemeanor. Where did you think all the non violent offenders would go? Can’t get anyone into rehab when they are just issued a ticket and sent back to the streets.
And God forbid you try and put the juvenile gangster in juvenile hall. Wake up folks, these youngsters are doing the shootings.
The courts won’t put kids in Juvie because there are no “programs”. And, don’t tell me about Decision Points or T4C. We all know those are BS programs designed to act as smoke and mirrors for the public,
Prop 47, liberal thinking.. Coddling criminal’s…
I wonder if the elected officials miss Paul Walters in Santa Ana yet?
Very good article.. As Joe Friday used to say in the 50’s T.V. show “Dragnet”. “The facts Mam, just the facts”