Menifee PD is staffed, trained to fullfill an important mission

Photos courtesy of Menifee Police Department Facebook page

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Months before the murder of George Floyd in police custody and the protests that have followed that and similar incidents, Pat Walsh was creating a police department that would display his career-long reputation of responsible community policing.

Beginning July 1, Walsh and some 60 officers in the newly formed Menifee Police Department plan to show local residents – and any in the regional community that may be watching – that it’s possible to maintain an effective police department with proper training and positive community interaction.

In November 2018, the Menifee City Council voted unanimously to approve the creation of a Menifee Police Department, believing it could put more boots on the ground at less cost than its contract with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. Since then, in the 15 months since Walsh was hired to become the department’s Police Chief, there has been virtually nothing but positive reaction from residents.

Even so, Walsh (left) knows that the national and regional environment in which the Menifee PD will begin patrolling the streets in less than two weeks is different than it was not long ago. Public protests around the country include chants of “defund police”, with some Riverside County residents even attending a recent Board of Supervisors meeting to demand cuts to the Sheriff’s Department funding.

Amid all this, everything in the mission and training program of Walsh’s department says “Judge us on our own merits.”

“I made a commitment that if I was going to build a new police department, the most important thing would be the culture,” said Walsh, who spent 22 years with the Portland Police Bureau before serving as Police Chief for the City of Lompoc for nearly five years. “This was way before COVID all everything else that has happened. As we brought employees on, we all agreed we had an incredible opportunity to create a great culture within the community. All our training and preparation is focused toward our mission statement and values.”

The Menifee PD mission statement says, "We deliver an experience where people feel unified, engaged, and safe.”

The following values are listed along with that mission statement:

Together: See one another-Know one another-Empower one another
Humble: Learn-Serve-Sacrifice
Creative: Encourage and pursue original ideas

Walsh said that as those concepts have developed during creation of the department, emphasis has been put on training in the best “defensive tactics”, or techniques of confronting individuals without using practices such as kneeling with one’s knee on the neck – a technique that resulted in Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25, and one that is not endorsed by any police department.

“Our system of training is based in martial arts," Walsh said. "We’re not martial artists, but we have trained in using controlled holds as opposed to punching and other methods. We stress calming oneself and using appropriate techniques. If it takes 10 minutes, it takes 10 minutes.

“One of our officers, who’s a big guy, said, 'I just overpower people. But I see this technique is better and results in less injury. '”

One thing is certain: There will be many more officers on the streets in a city where residents often complain about slow police response times and increasing numbers of auto theft and other crimes.

The Menifee Police Department will have between 7 and 14 officers on patrol per shift, said Captain Christopher Karrer (right), who will oversee the patrol division. An average of 10 officers per shift would be double the amount of Sheriff’s Department deputies currently on patrol in the city, according to city documents.

Officers assigned to weekday duty will work four 10-hour shifts per week, Karrer said. Because of the overlap of hours, there could be as many as double the amount of officers on duty at certain times of the day. Weekend shifts will be 12 hours on Friday through Sunday.

Of the 60 total sworn officers, 44 hold officer ranks. The 36 patrol officers includes three motor patrol officers per shift. In addition, community service officers will take police reports where no suspect is involved and will assist in collecting evidence, freeing up patrol officers for more active crimes.

“The goal is to limit the amount of wait time,” Karrer said. “We’re told that when a car is broken into, it’s taking three days for police to respond. That won’t happen. I don’t know for a fact that it’s happening now, but we will make sure it doesn’t happen with us.”

In addition to the extra boots on the ground, the Menifee Police Department is projected to be more cost effective than the contract with the Sheriff's Department. The Menifee Police Department budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year is $14.9 million, according to city documents. That will cover 200 patrol hours per week. A renewed contract with the Sheriff's Department -- including a 7 percent increase recently approved by the County Board of Supervisors -- would be approximately $16.7 million for 120 patrol hours per week.

Karrer and David Gutierrez are the captains of Menifee PD. Working under them are three lieutenants – Denise Keith, Heriberto Gutierrez and Abigail Valle.

Heriberto Gutierrez and Valle will have direction supervision of the patrol division.

“We’re primarily based in the station as managers,” said Heriberto Gutierrez (left). “The sergeants are primarily involved with the officers out in the field and will have the most amount of contact with community members. But we will have the opportunity to get out in the field and meet community members.

“Part of our goal is to have a robust community outreach program where all our employees are involved. The lieutenants play a vital role in motivating employees, leading by example. We will have community meetings, meet with local HOAs. We want to make sure every community within Menifee can have that support from their police department and work together to improve quality of life issues. We have to get out from behind our desk in order to have that community interaction.”

Keith will supervise the detective bureau, which will include four detectives who investigate local crimes and have relationships with county crime labs and techs.

“We have to work hand in hand,” Keith said about the relationship between patrol officers and detectives. “We’re responsible for the follow-up investigation for any criminal offense. We work with the victims, the district attorney, and get everything ready for a successful prosecution.

“One detective will specialize in domestic violence and sex crimes. That will require a little more focus because it’s very sensitive. We’re dealing with families and kids. We will also deal with financial and cyber crimes. Every crime seems to touch some aspect of cyberspace.

“We will have a lot of partnerships with other agencies, such as the crime lab and computer lab," continued Keith (right). "It takes a team. No one person can do this.”

Jason Adams, one of the detective sergeants, said that having the department's own detectives in house will enhance investigative techniques.

“The Sheriff’s Department is very good at different specialties, but it’s difficult for them to patrol actively in a community this expansive,” Adams said. “It’s important to have enough bodies to have a presence, which we are able to do. This will help the Sheriff’s Department pay more attention to surrounding areas they service. We will work together.

“There’s a lot of property crime here. It seems to be higher than a lot of surrounding communities. I think we’ll see a dramatic drop pretty quickly because of the number of officers we’ll have out on the streets.

“Crime will always continue, but our response will be remarkably better. We’ll have a lot of tech resources such a license plate readers. In agencies that don’t have that tech umbrella they can apply to investigation, a lot of those crimes go unsolved.”

The department also plans to have up to four K-9 units. The first K-9 trained officer and police dog will go on duty shortly after the July 1 kickoff, Karrer said.

The Menifee Police Department is housed in the old City Hall on Haun Road. It has been seismically retrofitted and is equipped with office space, interview rooms and a records and evidence storage building. Suspects arrested will be transferred to the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta for housing after being interviewed at the Menifee station.

“If people don’t trust us, we can’t do policing effectively,” Walsh said. “There’s a very small minority in society that is calling for police defunding. I believe the way they are doing this waters down the tragedy that occurred. It’s like people are forgetting about George Floyd in all this.

“The message we’re giving is we’re training better and we’re going to interact with the community. Police officers cannot be robots.”

For more information about the Menifee Police Department, see the department’s website here or the City of Menifee-Police Department Facebook page.