CHP

Our speaker was Captain and Commander Paul Vincent  of the Highway Patrol of Santa Cruz County.

He first highlighted the Special Olympics, and said his squad has taken this on as their own project. This year it will be in LA and is expected to be a huge event. Some of the fundraising events leading up to the Special Olympics include a torch run and a polar plunge. Recently the Santa Cruz Squad did a kick off for the torch run and was presented with a plaque for being in the top 10% of law enforcement units for funds raised.

Captain Vincent went on to speak of his own background. He is originally from Bakersfield .CHP hired him at 21 and he graduated from the academy when he was 22.  He worked in Central LA but when offered a position in Santa Cruz he happily left.

Captain Vincent went on to speak of CHP, reminding us that it is our state police and their jurisdiction is statewide.  They have SWAT teams, capital protection,  equestrian units, bicycle patrols and even a canine unit which is split with Monterey. There is even air support which comes out of Paso Robles. The Santa Cruz area has 57 officers  when at  full strength as well as 5 patrol sergeants and one lieutenant.  He asserted that there is good cohesiveness between law enforcement groups in our area and that there are MOUs between departments to assist each  other. Staffing remains an issue. It has dropped to mid 70’s level, not so much for budgetary reasons but  because people are leaving or returning faster than they can be replaced.

He then shared some data from the past year. There were 2200 accidents last year as compared to 186,000 statewide. Thirteen (13) of these resulted in traffic fatalities up 18% from previous year. 618 involved injury. He also mentioned that enforcement contacts are at 28,300, down 19% from previous year.  Statewide is at 2.7 million.

There were questions as to whether the ethnic makeup of CHP officers reflect the communities they serve and the answer was no. Captain Vincent noted that there was a need to improve in this area and said that it was hard to get minorities interested in law enforcement. There were also questions about racial profiling of violators. The answer was anecdotal  e.g. that he hopes his officers do not do this but he said that data does exist to analyze whether or not there is overrepresentation of minorities in warnings given versus citations. He mentioned that they now have cameras in their cars so courts can see what they can see. CHP response to gang activity in the area was discussed as well as a recent court ruling which allows people to use map apps on their cell phones while driving which makes it difficult to tell whether or not they are texting.

Captain Vincent concluded by discussing a recent protest by UCSC students. (The students were responding to proposed recent rise in tuition as well as police issues.)   He said that six individuals had ‘plotted to obstruct traffic’. They used a sleeping dragon technique with arms daisy chained together with chains and handcuffs that couldn’t be unlocked because of led pipe slipped between chains.  He said they rolled out cans filled with concrete and effectively stopped traffic.  He said when he was called his first reaction was to ‘break their arms to get them out of the roadway’ which also turned out to be the state CHP commissioner’s original reaction.  In the end they had to fly in helicopters and use special equipment to clear roadway. CHP will be seeking felony charges on all 6 individuals.

He concluded by saying that if people wished to ride along they always can or can join senior volunteer program.