By Rebecca Kimitch
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
EL MONTE, Calif. — It has been more than a year since major cuts were made to the El Monte Police Department, yet crime so far this year is down 6 percent compared to last year.
But that statistic could be misleading, according to some inside the department. They say a backlog of cases has been piling up on detectives’ desks for months, criminals are going unarrested, and officers are responding more slowly to non-emergencies. And it’s all because of the cuts.
“I don’t think our city or our chief are not doing their job - we are doing the best we can. But police service has been effected and you can’t expect it not to be,” said Officer Ben Lowry. “You can’t go from 160 officers to 119 and expect the same level of service. Everybody who is working there, from the chief on down, is trying their best to make sure the city is safe... but we have been stretched as far as we can.”
The city and its staff - including the El Monte Police Officers Association - are in contract negotiations, with City Manager Rene Bobadilla calling for employees to defer pay raises for three years.
While police Chief Tom Armstrong disputes some of the claims made about the impacts to service, even he acknowledges that the department’s ability to proactively police El Monte has diminished.
“We have to catch as catch can... we just don’t have the luxury of being proactive anymore,” he said.
Instead of picking up gang members and prostitutes, or addressing public drunkenness and homeless issues - generally trying to prevent crime before it occurs - the department has had to focus on responding to crimes once they do occur, Armstrong said.
“Residents might see a little increase in gang activity, drinkers hanging out on the street, homeless people out there,” Lt. Santos Hernandez said. “Could it be better? Yes.”
Still, Armstrong and Hernandez said the cuts made last year to help El Monte deal with a multi-million budget deficit have not affected the department’s ability to do its job beyond proactive policing.
“Are we able to do our job? Absolutely yes. I think that is reflected in our crime statistics,” Armstrong said. “I am pleased that our officers have been able to do so much. That is a great credit to them.”
Violent crime, including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, fell 11 percent in the first five months of this year compared with the first five months of last year, Armstrong said. And nonviolent crime, including burglary and theft, declined 4 percent.
The city also saw a 10.5 percent decrease in violent crime last year compared to 2008, according to FBI statistics released last month. But property crimes in 2009 rose 5 percent over 2008.
El Monte can do better, Armstrong said, particularly since crime was down all over the country.
Lowry, who is a board member of the El Monte Police Officers Association, says the drop in crime is inflated since the statistics no longer include the people who were arrested proactively.
Still, several City Council members say they have not heard complaints from residents about the level of service the Police Department is providing.
“Our department has done an admirable job filling in the gaps,” said Councilwoman Patricia Wallach. “But if we do much more cutting, I think we will have a problem.”
Two years ago, in May 2008, the department had 148 officers, 70 full-time civilian employees, and 28 part-time employees. Now it has 124 officers, 45 full-time civilian employees and 14 part-time employees. At its peak, in 2005, the department boasted 161 officers.
The department’s investigative units, community services department, and records clerks have been among the hardest hit by the cuts. Instead it has focused resources on regular police patrols, which Armstrong called the “backbone” the department.
Armstrong said this has allowed police response times to emergencies and crimes in action to be maintained at about 5 minutes.
However, despite the patrol focus, Lowry said responses to cold calls, where no suspects are present - such as car burglaries - has increased significantly.
But it is the department’s investigative arm that causes Lowry and the POA the most concern.
Since last year, seven detectives have been taken out of investigative units and reassigned to patrol duties, reducing the number of detectives investigating crimes by nearly 50 percent, he said.
That means the cases those detectives were responsible for investigating have been reassigned to the remaining detectives.
Detective Eric Walterscheid, who took on the cases of three detectives, said he has watched his caseload gradually increase until it reached a 1,200 percent increase over it what it was before the cuts.
And he says the backlog of cases grows daily.
“It has become like shoveling sand against the surf,” said Walterscheid, who is also on the POA board of directors.
Hernandez said detectives have had to learn better time management.
“Guys have had to stay more focused on the cases they have been assigned,” he said. “The case load has increased, but we have been able to manage it surprisingly well.”
Armstrong said that while detectives have had to reprioritize cases, based on the crime and their leads, internal audits show detectives are not overwhelmed.
“There may not be the manpower to investigate cases whose leads are not as significant,” he said. “They will still pursue the cases, it just takes much longer to deal with.”
That delay is what has Walterscheid concerned. The longer it takes to make an arrest or take other action, the more likely it is for a perpetrator to strike again, he said.
“It is nice to say you can triage these cases, handle the most important first.. but there is no triaging in sex crimes or crimes against kids. With child abuse cases, you are leaving the kids out there for more abuse,” he said.
And in domestic violence cases, which officers in El Monte respond to several times a day, perpetrators can come back a second or third time before a detective can investigate the first call, Lowry said.
But Hernandez said the department is not facing unusual delays in investigating crimes.
“I can tell you right now it’s fine,” he said.
The department has struggled with cuts to its records clerks - the civilian staff responsible for computerizing the hand-written police reports produced by officers. That staff was cut in half.
The reports are entered into the computer before the cases are assigned to detectives, and members of the POA say the cuts have resulted in delays to that process or even reports being lost, further delaying investigation times.
Armstrong acknowledges the records department had initial problems, but says they have been rectified with the help of police cadets and volunteers.
“In my personal opinion, when we cut our records bureau, we cut a little too deep,” he said.
But that office’s burden will be reduced next month, when officers begin using recently purchased mobile computers that allow them to electronically file police reports on the scene, instead of filling out a paper report that must later be input.
The Police Department is also attempting to rebuild its community services programs. In April, officials brought back the TORCH program, a sort of boot camp for at-risk youth.
“People don’t realize if you invest time and effort today, it is an exceptional payoff in the future,” Armstrong said.
City officials said they hope to restore more programs as city finances improve.
“I would think that anyone with half a mind would know that the minute things get better, we will start filling back in those gaps. Hopefully that is in the not too distant future,” Wallach said.
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