Warden official asks about police hours

WARDEN — A Warden city councilmember questioned police scheduling, asking whether officers were scheduled during the night.

Councilmember Mike Leavitt asked whether police were patrolling at night during Police Chief Rick Martin’s presentation to the city council. Leavitt said he saw an officer at a gas station.

“That’s why, I’m just wondering if we’ve got somebody that’s going out and just working all night or if we’ve got somebody that’s getting up early to get guys that are running late going to work,” he said.

Martin said there wasn’t an officer on duty all night, adding there is a less than a 12-minute response time if there is any crime reported during the night.

“We’re on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” he said. “From that, I’m not going to say when officers are out and what he’s doing. They are just there. Period. There’s no notion of somebody not working at night.”

Martin does not have anyone scheduled for traffic patrols at 6 a.m., he said. The officer was probably called to do something or was purchasing items for himself.

Leavitt suggested having police working at night, because that’s when crimes seem to occur.

“We don’t need to be issuing an abundance of traffic citations to taxpaying citizens going to work,” he said.

Mayor Roldan Capetillo said those citizens shouldn’t be speeding either.

“I agree. Don’t break the law and you won’t get caught,” Leavitt said, he then mentioned a series of thefts from trucks waiting for harvest to start. “Let me ask — these stereos or whatever get’s stolen out of these trucks — is it happening during the day?”

Capetillo said the police aren’t sure when the vehicle prowls are occurring, because the drivers don’t check their trucks everyday.

“So we don’t know. There’s no hard evidence that it’s done at night. Nobody’s telling us it’s being done at 10 o’clock at night, at midnight, at one, at three, at six in the morning,” he said. “It’s not like I can tell the chief to go ahead and put people on from two in the morning to six in the morning to patrol.”

Martin said he doesn’t want to publicize what he plans to do concerning the thefts, but he does plan to sit down with the mayor.

Capetillo said the city is trying not to publicize when police are patrolling, referring to Martin’s comment that someone is always on duty.

Leavitt said it seemed like more crimes happen in the dark rather than during the day, adding if the city publicized patrols during the night it might discourage crime in the city.

“If they have a perception that there’s an actual officer on patrol, they might think twice about stealing somebody’s stereo,” he said. “When they know that nobody’s out after two o’clock, that’s when the party begins. That’s the way it’s been and I think that’s the way it’s going to continue until something changes.”

Martin responded, saying he understands Leavitt is after the bad guys, not the good guys running traffic.

“That’s not even the issue,” Leavitt said. “If we’re low on manpower, why are we putting them out in the day time, when we’re having problems happening at night?”