Feds end collaboration with Calexico police
CALEXICO — Calexico police officials are expressing disappointment that a nearly two-year collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at enhancing the local department’s operations recently ended without any federal acknowledgment of its accomplishments.
Yet, the cancellation of the memorandum of understanding between the CPD and the DOJ in September came at a time when the bulk of the DOJ’s suggested recommendations had already been implemented, said Chief Reggie Gomez.
“It was getting to the point that I felt comfortable with what we were doing, and I would say the DOJ felt comfortable with what we were doing,” Gomez said.
The lack of any final report or formal recognition from the DOJ’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office program is attributed to the change in administrations at the White House and DOJ, which announced on Sept. 15 changes to its Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance program.
“Changes to this program will fulfill my commitment to respect local control and accountability, while still delivering important tailored resources to local law enforcement to fight violent crime,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions had said in a written statement.
Gomez said he gotten news in late August of the collaboration’s ending from a COPS Office official who he hadn’t recognized or worked with in the past. That official had reportedly told Gomez that the phone call would likely be the agencies’ final contact.
“He just told us ‘Good job, you guys did real well,’” Gomez said.
Prior to the cancellation of the collaborative effort, Calexico police officials had received word that the recommendations that were being addressed needed to be completed by Aug. 31, Gomez said.
“We met our deadline about a week ahead of schedule,” he said.
The ‘scathing’ report
The lack of any final report or public acknowledgment of the department’s accomplishments is in stark contrast to the May 18, 2016 news conference announcing the release of the COPS Office’s 133-page report.
That report included 94 findings and 164 recommendations that had faulted the Calexico Police Department for leadership instability, poorly functioning internal affairs, as well as a lack of protocols that would discourage police misconduct.
When released, the report was widely characterized by various media outlets as “scathing.”
The report also had erroneously alleged, and media mistakenly reported, that Calexico police had kidnapped an individual in 2014, something that had never taken place and which actually alluded to an incident that Calexico police were investigating at the time.
“I thought how could they get this so wrong,” Gomez said.
The report’s initial recommendations had also been reduced to just 36 following a meeting Gomez had with COPS Office representatives shortly after he was appointed chief in November 2015, he said.
Although it was Gomez’s predecessor, former chief Michael Bostic, who had initiated the voluntary collaborative effort, Gomez said he also felt the process would be beneficial to the department and its officers, some of whom had been publicly accused of corruption by Bostic.
“We needed to get rid of this cloud that the (Police Department) had once and for all,” Gomez said.
The leadership team
As part of the department’s reform efforts, a leadership team made up of senior personnel was tasked with addressing the DOJ’s recommendations, and initially had reported to the federal oversight team on a weekly basis through a conference call.
A sign that progress was being made became evident when the COPS Office eventually reduced those conference calls to once every two weeks.
Another positive development resulted from revisions that Sgt. Armando Marquez had made to the department’s investigations policy, which other police chiefs assigned to the COPS Office’s initiative said would likely be adopted by their respective department’s, Gomez said.
As part of the effort, 27-year veteran Officer Cynthia Fraker had been tasked with addressing any issues involved with training and response as well as the handling of calls for service.
“Some of our policies were a little out of date,” Fraker said.
In her estimation, the nearly two years that the department had worked with the COPS Office was an adequate amount of time to address the report’s concerns, Fraker said.
Yet, the department’s recent accomplishments aren’t likely to get the same amount of attention that the department received following the release of the DOJ’s report in May 2016, leaving the wider community in the dark.
“We realize where we are now and we’re looking to move forward and build that trust back with the community,” Fraker said.
Lt. Jesus Serrano had been tasked with reviewing and revising the department’s internal affairs, disciplinary and operational policies.
The collaboration’s ending came about a year and a half into the scheduled three-year effort. Although the effort had resulted in the approval of various revised policies and protocols, its unexpected ending had cut short the time reserved for the monitoring of the adopted revisions, Serrano said.
Some adopted revisions included changes to the department’s deployment schedule to ensure officers largely remain on patrol as opposed to having to unnecessarily report to the station, he said.
Other changes, such as those made to the department’s internal affairs investigations, are expected to take a little longer to fully implement, Serrano said.
“I don’t believe that there would have been any problem for us to meet all those recommendations,” he said. “Some of the stuff is real quick and easy, some will take a little longer.”
Improving community relations was also among the report’s recommendations, and a task that fell to Sgt. Victor Legaspi.
Although the department had always practiced community-oriented policing, the COPS Office collaboration has enhanced its efforts.
Quarterly reports detailing the department’s community outreach efforts are now routine at the station, as is the widespread use of surveys that question Calexico residents about their concerns and suggestions for the department, Legaspi said.
Much of the department’s operational issues date back several years, and are the result of a former chief’s inexperience with administrative duties, said Lt. Gonzalo Gerardo.
Whereas the department had been hampered before by outdated policies, its recent revisions make it unique among local as well as statewide law enforcement agencies, many of whom likely are also in need of comprehensive policy revisions.
“I think every department should go through something like this at least once every five years,” Gerardo said.
Looking forward
Calexico police officials said they are currently focused on fully implementing recent changes to policies and protocols, as well as continuing to grow the number of the department’s civilians and sworn officers in order to better serve the community.
It recently hired a public safety dispatcher and is looking to fill a number of vacant officer positions, Gomez said.
City Councilman Armando Real said that he too would have liked to have seen an official report from the COPS Office acknowledging the department’s progress with the report’s recommendations.
Without such a report, Real said it remains difficult for the community in general, as well as the department’s more vocal critics, to feel assured that the CPD has addressed the operational issues that were outlined in the DOJ report.
“I’m not going to say that we’ll never know for sure,” he said, “but how do we verify that it was actually done.”
Real also acknowledged that there is a widespread perception that the department’s inner workings and policing practices have improved, and that with time it can develop into one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the Valley.
“I think there’s a lot of things they still need to work on,” he said.
One possible solution that could determine the progress the department had made in terms of the DOJ report’s recommendations is to have another local agency perform an audit of some sort, Real said.
“I personally think the only way that the community and elected officials can be assured that the improvement plan was completed is to have a third party verify that,” he said.