Testing the waters

A change of guard took place last week at the Costa Mesa Police

Department. Longtime Police Chief Dave Snowden finally arrived at his

long-planned retirement. Taking his place is the city’s fourth police

chief in its 50-year history.

John Hensley, who last served as Cypress’ police chief, took over

on Monday. He is sizing up the department and looks forward to making

any needed changes.

On Thursday, City Editor James Meier met the new chief in his

still-empty office at the Police Department. Hensley said he looks

forward to meeting with his fellow officers and the community. On

Thursday, he discussed the latest crime statistics, his past and his

future in Costa Mesa.

You arrived at an interesting time. FBI statistics show that crime

was down 5% in 2002, but in the last couple of months, there has been

an increase in violent gang activity. There’s obviously something to

be pleased about, but there’s also reason for concern. What are your

thoughts on that?

Well, I’ve typically said that police chiefs take too much credit

when crime goes down and get too much blame when it increases.

At this point, I’m a bit concerned about the violent crime

increase. I haven’t had the opportunity to really explore what might

be the root causes. I haven’t sat down with the gang unit to find out

what they suspect might be the issues.

I have said for the last three or four years that crime could not

continue to drop as it had through the late ‘90s and into the early

millennium. I kept saying year after year, it’s going to plateau at

some point and we’re going to see some increase.

I think we’re seeing that now. And there’s a number of factors

that are contributing to that. The economy isn’t helping. The

individuals who are in their crime prone years, which typically are

17 to 25, they’re sort of peaking right now, so you’ll see that kind

of a thing.

I don’t know much about what’s going on with releases and so on

from jail, but I will tell you that I do know that a lot of the

individuals we’re dealing with that are involved in the violent crime

are on parole or probation and I suspect three strikes has helped us

a lot over the years. What we need to do now is find out who’s

involved in these violent acts and then put them in jail. I suspect

most of them will be getting close to those three strikes.

The bottom line is that we have to get to the bottom of what’s

happening over on the west end in terms of robberies, assault with

deadly weapons and so on, and see if we can come up with a plan to

address that.

What are your priorities at this point?

My priorities are to get to know the individuals in the

organization and at City Hall and then to get out into the community.

For the last several days, I’ve been focusing my attention on walking

around and meeting people where they work because they’re not going

to come in here.

I remember what it was like back when I was an officer. You didn’t

go to the chief’s office unless you were in trouble.

What would you say are your strengths as a police chief?

I think I’m a hard worker. I get things done. I have a reputation

as being a fixer. I can identify problems and I have been successful

with coming up solutions to fix them.

And while I don’t like public speaking for the sake of giving

speeches, I think I’m a relatively good communicator when it comes to

meeting with folks, particularly one on one and in small groups.

Tell me about some of your proudest law enforcement

accomplishments.

In Cypress, when I got there, they talked about community

policing, but they didn’t do it. And over the five years that I was

there, we fully incorporated it as an organization. I used to hear a

lot of complaints in the community about not seeing police officers:

“I’ve lived here 30 years and have never seen a cop on my street.”

What I’m really happy about is you don’t hear those things any

longer because we developed the system where the officers were

assigned the same beat day in and day out. And if someone called the

police department to complain, they talked to the beat officer one on

one. A lot of people in the past called the chief’s office. “Well, I

don’t know what’s going on in that particular neighborhood.” So we

didn’t get those calls the last couple of years.

Other things I’m proud of is the Volunteer In Policing -- the VIP

program -- and the citizens’ academy, a very successful one.

What’s your first week been like so far? You said you had met

quite a few people.

Busy. Meeting a lot of people. I’ve been asking a lot of questions

about how the organization runs. I’ve been taking notes about what

people believe are the issues in the organization.

At some point in time, I’ll be putting together, along with my

staff, an action plan to address these issues, because I believe

heavily in examining the organization and making improvements where I

can find them. So far, I’ve found this a very solid organization, but

there are things that are going to need some fine tuning. I believe

that’s my role.