Increasing crime in Hollister and a lack of police officers to
investigate it have resulted in an overload of approximately 1,000
open cases dating back to 2003 in an already understaffed police
department.
Increasing crime in Hollister and a lack of police officers to investigate it have resulted in an overload of approximately 1,000 open cases dating back to 2003 in an already understaffed police department.
The department’s only two detectives working on the cases, Tony Lamonica and Rudy Rodriguez, said things will get worse before they get better.
Although city officials say public safety is the city’s number one priority, Hollister doesn’t have the money to hire more officers, according to City Councilman Tony LoBue.
“We’re screwed four ways from Sunday and we’re not the only city facing this problem,” he said. “Yes, we need more police officers, yes we need more detectives and yes I’m pissed off these crimes are going unsolved.”
But procuring an answer to the department’s problems is difficult, especially with the city and state’s staggering deficits, Hollister Police Chief Jeff Miller said.
“If I had a simple answer, I would bottle it and spread it around the state. We’re not the only city in tough times,” he said. “But the city is going to have to decide what its priorities are.”
The city needs to find new sources of revenue to provide more resources for the police department if it wants to continue providing adequate services and tackle the high number of open cases, Miller said.
“If they don’t want these things to happen, this community has to consider other ways to create revenue – like a public safety parcel tax,” Miller said. “If they decide that’s a terrible three- letter word and we’re not going there, then will they support decreased services?”
Councilman Robert Scattini conceded the department and detective’s bureau is going through tough times and suggested a possible sales tax increase to create more revenue for the department or bring in police reserves – either retired officers or officers right out of the academy who aren’t usually paid.
“There’s plenty of guys out there that like to work reserves, then that would let officers go into the detective’s bureau,” Scattini said.
LoBue also suggested residents get more involved and increase the level of community policing to help the strapped department.
“This isn’t a time when we can be afraid of retaliation or people in our community,” LoBue said. “We need to stand up to the people who are committing these crimes. We can’t rely on the police department to be everywhere all the time, and that’s the bottom line.”
Part of the problem, Miller said, stems from injuries in the police force. Currently, two sergeants and three officers are on the injured list. At least one sergeant will return to full-time duty within a month and Miller plans to assign a patrol sergeant to the detective bureau to alleviate the workload.
“I think it will help tremendously,” he said. “It won’t solve the problem completely by a long shot … but it will be good for him to take a new look at things.”
Likewise, an inability for the detectives to get to the new cases coming in, let alone the old cases sitting on their desks for months, has a dispiriting affect on the entire department, he said.
“It’s a very painful thing and this hurts us,” Miller said. “It hurts professionally, it hurts morale-wise that we’re not able to provide the services we’d like to provide. It’s not a matter of won’t, it’s that they can’t.”
With the city’s growth and the natural increase in crime that accompanies it, a staff that isn’t growing in numbers poses more of a problem than in years past, Rodriguez said.
Lamonica is working about 300 person crimes, which include sexual assaults, assaults, homicides and attempted homicides. Rodriguez has about 700 open property crime cases, which include vandalism, thefts and his current priority, mail and identity theft.
Property crimes comprise about two-thirds of the total case load and prior to the pair taking over a year ago, the department had only one detective investigating cases, Rodriguez said.
“He didn’t even touch property – he was just taking priority cases coming in,” he said. “We knew it was like that when we came down here. We’re not trying to (complain) about it, like poor us. We just go about it as we can … work it the best we can.”
Even with extra hours of overtime, taking cases home with them at night and attempting to work as efficiently as possible with one another, not even 25 percent of the cases are closed a year, Rodriguez said.
“And that’s probably generous,” Rodriguez said. “But if we’ve got a good solid case and a good solid suspect we go after them immediately and take care of business right then and there.”
Despite the slow response from the overwhelming workload, Lamonica feels it is still imperative the community continues reporting crimes to the police.
“We don’t want people… to be discouraged about calling in and reporting these crimes. Like, ‘Why report it because they’re not going to do anything about it?’ That’s not true,” Lamonica said. “We still want people to report (crimes) to the patrol officers. Don’t stop reporting, because we will eventually get to it. We care enough to get it done, it’s just a matter of time.”
Erin Musgrave can be reached at 637-5566, ext. 336 or at
em*******@fr***********.com
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