Issue of a Menifee city police department comes to forefront

In February 2016, responding to concerns over police manpower in the city, the Menifee City Council authorized the study of a proposal to partner with other cities in creating a Joint Powers Authority for a shared police force. A study was conducted, but no action on the JPA was taken.

In October 2017, consultant Tom Hicks presented at no charge to the City a plan he says would enable Menifee to create its own police department with more manpower and at less cost than the City's current contract with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. The proposal hasn't been discussed by the council since.

Fast forward to this week, when residents are posting concerns on social media and in media interviews about public safety in the wake of an incident at La Ladera Park on Tuesday. A man accused of groping a young girl was chased down by bystanders and held for 10 minutes until officers arrived.

This incident has resulted in other complaints by residents about police response time and the small number of officers patrolling a city of more than 90,000. To many, a Sheriff's Department force that has just five or six patrol officers at any one time is unacceptable.

So the question arises once again: When is the City Council going to consider forming its own police department?

There are significant start-up costs, to be sure. A police station must be built or leased. Patrol cars must be purchased or leased. And more officers usually means more money. No one is disputing that.

City Council member Matt Liesemeyer -- chairman of the city's public safety committee -- acknowledges all that. He knows the concept requires careful study. He's simply concerned that the issue isn't being addressed quickly enough. And he's concerned that the current resources are simply not enough to cover such a large and growing city.

"Speaking to the response times and the priority level given to this, in my conversation with Captain (Greg) Fellows, I was told this just wasn't something that warrants a Priority 1 call," Liesemeyer said about the Sheriff's Department response while four men -- one holding a baseball bat -- were holding 21-year-old Roland Riddell in their custody and waiting for police. A video of that incident was widely distributed on social media and local TV stations.

Fellows told Menifee 24/7 that the call was given Priority 2, stating that calls are classified as Priority 1 only when there is "the potential for an immediate loss of life." Fellows also told city officials that the nearest patrol car was miles away, across the 215 freeway in the Oasis senior community. Liesemeyer's concern is that there were so few patrol cars available, and the one that responded did so without lights and sirens.

"This incident could've gone bad real quick," Liesemeyer said. "For somebody not to exercise the judgment to put a higher priority to this one is concerning. You have residents detaining a gentleman with a baseball bat. Tempers could've flared real easily."

When asked for further explanation on the priority given to that call, Fellows wrote the following to Menifee 24/7 in an email:

"It is important our citizens know that we are just as concerned about this incident as they are. Our officer responded to the incident as quickly as possible. The only way our officer’s response could’ve been faster is if he responded in an emergency mode with his lights and siren, also known as Code 3. Because of the many dangers of emergency driving, we must balance its use against the circumstances we’re responding to.

"In this case, while the video and hindsight afford us the knowledge the suspect was being detained by a coach armed with a baseball bat, at the time the call was classified, this information was not known. As I indicated previously, we received information the coach was not threatening the suspect with the bat. The short of it is the information known to our officer did not justify a Code 3 response."

Liesemeyer said he doesn't blame Fellows, but rather a policy in handling calls for service he considers to be different than that of cities with their own police department.

"The culture of the Sheriff's Department is such that this type of call is not considered Priority 1," Liesemeyer said. "In a more localized police department, such priorities are often handled differently."

The Hicks presentation back in October indicated that with a budget of $13.8 million, it would be possible to lease a 100,000-square-foot facility for a temporary police headquarters, purchase 54 patrol cars and hire 74 sworn officers. Those numbers appear much better than the current Sheriff's Department contract, which costs $17.2 million for approximately 54 sworn officers working out of a station in Perris.

City officials have touted the recent opening of a Sheriff's substation storefront in the Sun City community, plus the hiring of two officers assigned to Menifee crime prevention, additional community service officers and two additional motorcycle officers. But the four additional patrol officers funded through the Measure DD tax measure have not arrived because the Sheriff's Department has none available until a new class graduates from the academy and is trained, Fellows said.

Fellows previously told Menifee 24/7 that he estimated the arrival of additional officers to be around September. That is the same as the completion date listed in the City of Menifee Strategic Plan for "an updated independent comprehensive Public Safety Services Study."

That plan, presented by City staff to the City Council at its April 18 meeting, identified that item as No. 1 on the priority list. But while acknowledging that alternative plans to the current Sheriff's Department contract are worth considering, Villa said a study of the Hicks presentation won't begin until the next fiscal year. That's because Villa plans to hire an independent firm to analyze the Hicks data, and he says there is no money in the current budget for that.

"As much as I want to trust (the Hicks plan), I want an independent viewpoint," said Villa, who did not assume his current position until two months after the Hicks presentation. "I have to analyze the costs over time. I can't just worry about year 1 and 2; I have to worry about year 5 and 10.

"We have to be careful how we proceed. We need an independent peer review of the model and cost. Right now, the funds are not there to develop those studies. The funding can't start until July 1."

Menifee Mayor Neil Winter said he has discussed the Hicks report with Villa and believes Villa has already started to check data in preparation for an independent study.

"The first thing I told Armando was that we need to look at the Hicks report," Winter said. "We're all a bit concerned because the report shows such a fantastic savings. We need to vet that."

No city official has said publicly they are unhappy with the Sheriff's Department services. Some simply want to analyze all alternatives for the most efficient service possible. And some residents have expressed concern about the department's ability to efficiently respond to calls for service with the limited manpower provided through its contract with the City.

Allie Munoz is the mother of a 17-year-old boy who she says was confronted by a man who showed him pornography on his tablet Jan. 8 outside the same home where Riddell lived. She said she called police at 6 p.m. and waited for officers to arrive and take the report. She says she heard nothing until 1 a.m., when she was awakened by a phone call from an officer asking if she still wished to file a report.

An officer came to her house some time around 1:30 a.m. to take the report. She said she saw the officer walk toward the man's home on the same street but she couldn't tell if any contact was made because it was dark. Daniel Blas, the owner of the group home where the man lived, said he was never informed of any such police report. No action was taken.

And another woman who wished to remain anonymous said that about two months ago, after her house was broken into, she waited 52 minutes for an officer to arrive to take a report. She says she was told to stay away from the home until police arrived. When they did, she was asked to fill out paperwork that would be picked up later. Two months later, despite repeated phone calls asking an officer to come pick up the paperwork and file it, she says she has never received a response.

"A study of these issues is complicated because sometimes cutting 30 seconds in response time could mean a multi-million dollar investment," Villa said in referring to the cost of additional officers. "Reducing the time by one minute could be a $3 to $5 million cost over time. We have to analyze the appropriate response times for Menifee."

In May 2016, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved a 7.46 percent increase in the cost of Sheriff's Department deputies to contract cities.

"The year-over-year aggregate increases in the law enforcement contract passed onto us by the County Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff's Department are unsustainable for the City of Menifee without corrective action," said Scott Mann, mayor of Menifee at the time.

Mann is no longer on the City Council. Rob Johnson, city manager at the time, also is gone. Now the challenge of addressing this issue is up to Villa, Winter and the rest of the current City Council. The next council meeting is May 2, but this item will not be on the agenda.

"It's true that the Sheriff's Department contract keeps costing more," Villa said. "There's going to be a breaking point here pretty soon when it will be more cost effective to develop our own police department.

"Sometimes, policies and procedures get fueled out of situations like this."