What are your biggest concerns for Fullerton?

I think as the new police chief, one of my biggest concerns, or really my responsibility as chief, is to make sure that we have the proper resources. To make sure that our community has stability within our organization, that we are properly responding to calls for service, and that we have the right staffing in our investigations bureau. Like most of the city, our staffing levels are much lower than they used to be.

So, first and foremost, one of my concerns is making sure that we have the right resources to be able to properly serve our community. I will say this council has been very supportive of the organization and really all employees within the greater organization of this city, with contracts that I think are competitive with the market. And they’ve been supportive of our organization in providing us with the right funding for training and equipment.

Suppose you’re asking me what my greatest fear for our community is. In that case, I think it would probably be an event that causes massive damage, whether that’s a mass shooting or stabbing or something like an earthquake, making sure that we are prepared for an incident like that, where there could potentially be mass casualties.

We have trains that run through our city. You know, some sort of train derailment. But with that comes the knowledge that it’s a possibility, so we prepare, we train, and we’ve activated the EOC as a city. We have created relationships with other agencies. I think when you have a fear, it’s good to have that fear because that means you’re prepared for it.

What improvements, equipment, and training does the Police Department actually need?

So, there are a couple of big-ticket items that we would like to explore. One of them is a system that when you call 911, or you request the police, you then get a text message from the police saying hey, the police officers are on the way. That gives them a bit of an estimated time of arrival via text. Now, that would depend on if it was an incident where you’re calling, and there are systems built into place that would be like a wrap-around customer service. Afterward, it gives you an opportunity to provide feedback on the service we provide.

It’s so similar to when you call a plumber; they’ll send you a text message: Hey, your plumber, Cody, is on the way. And then, when you’re done, it sends you a text message and says hey, how is our service? And it gives you the ability to rate and provide comments.
You know we have body-worn cameras, so let’s say, just like any personnel complaint we get, whether we believe it or not, we investigate it. Someone makes a complaint that seems outlandish. We looked at the video, and this ties into your question about community. Oftentimes, we’ll say, hey, “Why don’t you come in and watch the video with our internal affairs investigators?” We still document the complaint. We still send it to the state of California, but we’ll say hey, during this car stop, you said that the officer called you to pick a word. Maybe they used foul language. We would like you to watch the video with us and our internal affairs investigators. Let us know when you hear what you thought you heard. Nine times out of 10, it didn’t occur. And they’ll look at us and say, you know what? I think maybe I just heard it wrong, or I was so upset at the time, or I didn’t want to get a ticket, or I misunderstood the officer.

There are incidents where our officers are out of line. In any police agency within the country, we are human beings who are imperfect. And the emotion and thoughts and all of those things, right? And so sometimes we get it wrong. We hold our officers accountable. We have fired cops. We’ve disciplined cops. We filed cases against cops. It’s about customer service. We want to know what our community thinks about us, right? Because, you know, there’s the old saying, the police are the people and the people of the police, right? We’re part of the community, and so we want to do the job right. That’s why we live in this country. We want to hear what people have to say about us. Because I think our officers do a good job every day. Do we make mistakes? Absolutely. We hold them accountable when they do. But the vast majority of our police officers on every single call do a good job.

There are two other pieces of technology that we are looking into. Many cities are moving to what’s called a Real Time Crime Operation Center. And we are looking at potentially being a part of one with the county. Let me give you an example. Let’s say there’s a jewelry store that gets robbed. We get that call. We would have people who are able to pull camera feeds from businesses that give us that or give permissions digitally to their cameras or to traffic cameras or to an airship. Maybe nobody got a license plate there, but we, in real-time, can find a license plate and start tracking that vehicle and potentially how officers respond to that vehicle getting on the 91 freeway, and we can direct resources there. It provides an elevated level of service to the community. It’s having a real-time crime operations center, and we’re looking into the possibilities of that.

And then lastly, drones are used as first responders. We did a pilot program for this. We do have unmanned aerial systems called UAS, but we do that related to a call. So, let’s say we go to a call and we’re looking for a lost child in a park or on the trails. We’ll throw out the UAS, and we have a Birds Eye view. Police follow state law and federal law with the FAA; all officers and drones are licensed.
The drone, as a first responder program, which I know the Observer has a story on, responds to calls for service. It will beat our police officers there nine times out of 10 because it’s up in the air, and it’s just like having a helicopter at a fraction of the cost. And that helicopter can get on the scene way before the cops can, in many instances. We had one incident in particular where there was a man and a woman arguing in a backyard. He was armed with what looked like an AK47, and our officers were about to make entry into the backyard to contact them. The drone was overhead before our officers were, and we told them not to approach because the man was armed. The officers were able to come up with a plan to take him into custody without any sort of critical incident or use of force. It was a fake AK47, but it looked real. So yeah, it’s very scary for everybody.

Technology is really driving policing so we can do our jobs better. Those are the types of things we would be looking for when it comes to equipment that our officers would use every day. And I think I mentioned this: Our council has been very supportive and has been providing our police officers and our fire department with the tools they need to do their jobs.

Technology is very scary to some people. What are some protocols that would make it so that no one person could get into the system and, you know, hunt down their ex-girlfriends?

All of those systems are audited. They’re audited by supervisors. They’re all audited by Internal Affairs, and a lot of those systems are audited by the state as well. For instance, our ability to run license plates and search for people that are audited by the state, so if they see something that doesn’t seem right, they will send us notice and say we need to explain why we ran Jane Doe on this date and time. And we can see who ran them and what time. We can go back and see what time, what officer was on what call, and if there was a person related to that, and we can backtrack. In order for us to see information on people, we have to have a right to know and a need to know. It’s audited, and there are rules in place, and it’s by the Department of Justice.

Our current UAS program is bound by policies, and it’s audited, and the body cams are audited also. Every six months, they have an evaluation, and our supervisors do random audits of their videos as part of their evaluation. You know, checks and balances to make sure our customer service is where it needs to be. If they see something they don’t like, it becomes an internal affairs investigation. If it’s something like, hey, you’re kind of short with this person. When I watched this video, were you having a bad day? Then, we can take corrective measures. And any use of force, any citizen complaint, any injury to a prisoner, any pursuit – the body cameras are part of our internal affairs investigation, which we do on every single one. In fact, our organization generates more internal affairs investigations internally than we do by the public complaining about our police officers. Which means the supervisors are doing their jobs right. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that police officers are getting in trouble. It means that, hey, this didn’t look right. Let’s look into it and get some explanations right. On the flip side, just like any business, you want to applaud your employees when they do something right, and if they do something wrong, you want to correct it. So, it doesn’t either come into a bigger problem for them and their careers or turn into an issue that creates a problem for our community. We have quite a few checks and balances in this organization. We’re one of the few organizations in the world that can take someone’s rights away. We don’t take that lightly. That’s a big deal.

I know with new technology, there’s going to be a certain amount of training, but is there training that de-escalates situations?

One thing we just got: we just signed a 10-year deal with Axon, which is our body camera company. And as part of our contract, we got virtual reality training. So, there are these headsets that our officers can wear. They can shoot the range in them. They are scenario-based, such as de-escalation training, neurodivergent training, and mental health issues. Those types of interactions we can do with virtual reality. We can train our officers as close to real-life training as possible with virtual reality. Moreover, they can switch roles so the officer can see what it’s like to be that person. That creates empathy. So, that type of training that we’ve just purchased has been put into place. We have new tasers, and those new tasers are called taser seven and are from Axon. It changes our ability to utilize those Tasers when we’re up close with someone versus when we’re far away and gives us opportunities to use less force than before. So it’s a really good tool.

I heard that Tasers cause heart attacks in some people.

It is a temporary disruption. That’s it. We have never experienced somebody having a heart attack. Not, not that it doesn’t happen. But it is a very small percentage. But you also have target areas. You want to minimize damage.

I always wondered why the outline looks like a human, and you know, if you get in the heart or the head, it’s a good shot. I always thought it should be just the hands or the legs. That would be better and less lethal.

That’s not an uncommon thought, with the exception of this. We’re shooting for body mass because we want to stop the threat. And that’s the purpose. It is certainly not trying to kill anybody, but we’re trying to stop somebody. And so, saying, hey, shoot the gun out of his hand or her hand. That’s a very, very difficult shot, right? Especially under pressure. And this [the hand] moves more than the body, right? And so, you target the body. No one wants to ever kill another person; no one in their career ever wants to do that. I know there’s a common misconception. It’s a hellacious experience for everybody, including the officer. Emotionally damaging. Some officers never come back from it. They are medical out or retired because it is an incredibly emotional experience. No one wants to do that. But God forbid that happens; you want to stop the person because they’re doing something that’s going to kill somebody.
We’re using deadly force when someone’s life is at risk.

Well, that brings me to the next question: why has the release of the body cameras and investigation of the Hernandez killing taken so long?

Well, that’s a sort of complicated question. The incident happened on 5/27/2020, and we posted the body-worn camera footage on 6/29/2020. Thirty-two days after it happened, and that’s pretty quick.

Where was it posted?

It was posted on our social media and on the city website, 1421 website, which is for public records requests. We also posted our Community Critical Incident community briefing on 6/27. So, there’s a state law that says we have to release video within 45 days. We did it within 32 on this. It’s also on YouTube. Once there’s an officer-involved shooting, there are a couple of investigations that happen. We do an internal investigation to ensure that our officers follow policy and procedures. The Orange County District Attorney investigates the actions of the officers to determine whether or not that was a legal use of force. And then, we do the investigation into the actions of the suspect who got shot to see if they committed a crime. Those happen somewhat simultaneously.

The District Attorney’s investigation is the one that most people are concerned about because it involves the actions of the officer, whether or not that was a justified discharge of their weapon. Their investigations can take quite some time. We don’t control that. The other thing that happens now in the state of California is if the person didn’t have a gun or knife, let’s say they feigned having a gun that is now handled by the Department of Justice. Who takes an even longer time to do their investigation. I can’t comment on why it takes so long, but once that is done, we have a website in Fullerton where we release all of our videos and all of the public records requests according to the new law, SB1421. We put everything on there, and we posted this there on 11/4/2021. This stuff takes time, too. Because it’s not as simple as saying, OK, download the body-worn camera footage and put it on the Internet. We have to block out faces, and that takes an incredible amount of time. But we still did it pretty quickly. Then, there’s another complication, which involves civil litigation. So, there are certain things that we will and won’t release because of civil litigation or because of an ongoing investigation, and that’s the law.

Do you think de-escalation training occurs often enough so that it catches all the people who have built up resentments about certain populations?

The topic of de-escalation is certainly one that is discussed constantly in our organization, and I would imagine most police departments. I think there’s a misconception. No police officer wants to have to use force. It’s 2024, and every one of our police officers wears a body-worn camera, and they’re required to turn it on. There are instances where maybe they forget because they jump out of the car to chase somebody, or they get out of the car and someone has a weapon. They still get held accountable. It’s a policy violation. That incident [the violent beating to death of Kelly Thomas] has forever changed our organization for the better. We know as an organization what it’s like to go through an incident like that. Nobody wants to experience it again. Now, can I say with 100% certainty that it will never happen? Of course not. But that’s why we train our police officers all the time. There’s so much training that goes on in this organization. I mean, from the de-escalation to mental health interactions. How to deal with people that are on drugs. Tactics for approaching them. Our communication skills training. All of that stuff is talked about on a regular basis in briefings and training. Formal training happens in the Academy, in their field training officer program. There’s ongoing mandated training by the state of California to address that. It’s not normal to witness violence, and it’s not something that we want. We look to do right, and the use of force is violence, and it’s something that we try to mitigate and minimize as much as we can.

That’s a good segue into the video recruitment. The Police Department recruitment video is very militant and kind of scary, especially with the music.

I would say that I don’t think it’s militant at all. It shows police officers on motorcycles because we have police motorcycles. It shows our police cars with lights turned on because we have police cars with lights turned on. It shows our Canine program because we have canines. Actually, canines are oftentimes used to prevent more significant uses of force. It shows our SWAT team because we have a SWAT team.

It doesn’t really show the interaction between police officers and a community of people who are law-abiding citizens or checking in with the small businesses and seeing how they’re doing.

A friendly aspect, sure. Well, you also have to remember what the purpose of a recruitment video is. We are attempting to attract people who want to become police officers and want to drive a police car, ride motorcycles, and have aspirations of being on a SWAT team. And that’s not because they want to hurt people. SWAT teams are used to save people. I understand your point. And we actually do have a new recruitment video coming out next month. We’ve been working on it for quite some time.

Are we attracting violent people to come work here?

I think the answer to that is no. We have a very rigorous hiring process, which includes Oral boards, interviews, psych evaluations by psychiatrists, lie detector tests, and polygraphs. So, those types of people that want to get in and think that police get to go out and quote hurt people; they’ll never make it through our process because they will fail a psych. And on the off chance that someone gets through the process, we get to evaluate them and decide whether or not they’re a good fit for us.

There are plenty of people that don’t do training here. They get hired, they go to the Academy, we evaluate them when they’re in the Academy, they get out of the Academy, they get into the field training program, and we say they are not going to work here. Maybe they get hired somewhere else. Maybe it’s just something that’s not a fit for us. Just like any organization or business, there’s a culture here. And our culture is community serving. And so if they don’t have good safety tactics or we see that they’re not going to be involved in the community or they have a mindset different than ours, then they’re not going to continue working here. We have a probationary period. We evaluate them. We don’t want to attract violent people. I hope that they see this next one [recruitment video]. We put a lot of time and thought into it.

How important is transparency and informing the public?

Like I said earlier, the people are the police, and the police are the people, right? We truly believe that. In order for us to have any sort of legitimacy with the community we serve, we have to be transparent and open. Starting with [former chief] Bob Dunn, we did community policing. Community policing is not just events. Community policing is getting out of your car and talking to people at the park, having my cell phone number available to people for them to call me or send me emails. Last year, I implemented something called the Area Commander program. Where we have one Lieutenant responsible for the community in one specific area of the city, we have three areas. And I did that because I wanted to. I wanted them [the community] to have a point of contact.
Our area commanders will go into that area and hold a meeting. It’s similar to coffee with an officer but specific to that area with that area commander.

I’m kind of excited about next month. Starting next month, we’re going to have area commander meetings here at the Police Department, where we’re going to allow people access to our virtual firearms training facility downstairs. It’s not shooting guns; it’s a simulator, like a video game. Kind of like virtual reality, but it’s a training so people can see what it’s like to be in a situation that puts them in the position of the officer, so they get to see what it’s like. It’s sort of like a video game but very realistic, and so we’re going to open it up to those people that live in, let’s say, area one, which is from Buena Park to Euclid. The next month, it’ll be those who live from Euclid to Raymond, and then the next month will be those who live between Raymond and Placentia. And so, the area commander will be there and be able to explain to them why we do the training we do, why we have a decision-making process, how you go about making that decision. And they’ll be able to do it in our facility. A miniature training for the public.
The following quarter, we’re going to do the same thing with our virtual reality system for the community.

The majority of our community finds us on social media, so we post on social media. Transparency is also getting to know people. I think it’s important that people understand that I am a husband who has three kids (I have a 13-year-old boy, 15 15-year-old boy, 22 22-year-old girl, and 22 years); I have been married for 22 years. Our family life dictates who we are, right? And we’re the same as you. We just have a different job. And that’s part of being transparent, I think. Again, we’re all human beings trying to do something good. And I think it’s important for people to get to know who our police officers are.
In closing, I truly believe the police have two very, very basic functions.

Will you continue to expand on the community policing that former police Chief Dunn had in place?

Yes, we are full force, part of the Hope Center. We have a Lieutenant assigned there full time, and we have a police officer assigned there full time. Our goal is to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help anybody who’s in Fullerton that wants help.

Is the social worker program still moving forward?

It’s been a little bit of a challenge finding the right people for that job because it’s a very unique job for a social worker. We have one person doing the background right now. We’re opening it up again to find our final person. We work through policies with the county; we have the vehicles here, and they have uniforms ready. We’re still absolutely moving forward 100%.

I know that there was talk about an infrastructure that needed to happen so that they would be able to hear a call come through dispatch and be able to go out to the call. Has that been implemented?

Yeah, it’s very complicated, to be honest with you, because we had to come up with the logistics. Where are these people going to have offices? Who do they report to? What is an appropriate chain for them to follow? We have to train them on how to use a police radio. Are they going to get phone calls, or are they going to use the radio? Are they going to be on the computer? Who’s going to review their reports? The county is going to oversee them and review their reports. They work under the county’s license. What does that look like? What does that workflow look like? What hours are they going to work? Are they going to be together? Will they go to calls by themselves? What calls will they not go to by themselves? Because we have a responsibility to keep them safe as well. So, it’s a lot more complicated than just taking the check, and they start working the next Monday. It is finding the right people. It’s a unique position, and we are making sure that we can get it done safely as well. It’s a licensed clinical social worker who works for the Police Department in that capacity. They can be here to assist officers.

You said they have uniforms. Are they police uniforms?

They wear uniforms that say social worker on them. City of Fullerton. Their uniforms are tan and black. We don’t want them to look like police officers. We don’t want anyone to think they are police officers for their own safety, and sometimes people don’t want to talk to the police, and we understand that, but we want to provide.