Police chief presents annual report to Clearlake City Council
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Clearlake Police Chief Andrew White reported on the past year’s crime trends and his agency’s performance during the Clearlake City Council meeting on Thursday night.
White started out by introducing new Officer Brady Crenshaw and swearing him in. Crenshaw’s wife Celeste pinned on his badge as he held their young daughter, Joy.
“We’ll take good care of him,” White told Crenshaw’s family.
White noted that COVID-19 — and the associated rules and regulations — has been an ongoing challenge for the department.
The Clearlake Police Department continued its focus on community policing in 2021, building cars for children to drive in the city’s soapbox derby, participating in library story times for children and partnering with other city departments to put on a successful Independence Day celebration.
Officers once again delivered Thanksgiving meals and Christmas gifts, and participated in the “Shop with a Cop” program for local children, White said.
Police officers were a part of the response in the August Cache fire and the department has been working on projects to boost the city’s resilience in the face of such incidents. Those projects include fiber-optic internet at the Clearlake Senior Center, extending communications capability to the fire department and working on improvements to computer-aided dispatch.
White said they’ve launched the program CueHit, which surveys community members who have called or interacted with police. It also allows the department to update people when officers will respond, send follow-up information and resources, and get an assessment on their performance.
He said he made a concerted effort to bring people into the department who care about the community. The survey results show that effort does have a linkage to the satisfaction of community members.
Crime-related statistics White reported included the following for 2021:
• Calls for service increased by 3%, up by 756 to 21,956 calls.
• Arrests are trending down, totaling 2,324 in 2021, down by 148 or 6%.
• Officer-initiated activities totaled 12,044, down by 25% or 3,938. Those numbers were impacted by loss of staff.
• There were 3,731 reports created, up by 31, or 1%.
• Police conducted 3,694 traffic stops.
• There 24 more injury collisions, accounting for a 43% increase. Of those, there were three fewer fatalities, but six more major and 21 more minor collisions in 2021 compared to the previous year. Overall, Clearlake’s numbers are still not very high, White said, adding that staffing issues resulted in the agency losing the traffic officer position. “Enforcement is an important factor.”
• Priority one call response time was down slightly from 6:35 to 6:25 minutes; priority two response time from 10:50 to 12:06 minutes and priority three from 13:47 to 14:01 minutes.
White said violent crime is at a seven-year slow, dropping by 18%, a trend that has been happening for the last several years. Property crime has shown a 5% increase, but remains at one of the lowest levels since the city incorporated more than 40 years ago.
Part one crimes — such as murder, robbery, assault, burglary, vehicle theft and arson — are at an all-time low, and have declined by 35% in five years, White said.
Burglary is down 4% and arson is down 82%, while vehicle thefts rose 1% and larceny increased 12%, amounts that White called “concerning.”
White said it’s difficult to pin rising crime to any one thing.
He said the $0 bail rule has had a significant impact. Originally, it was driven by the California Supreme Court, but repealed last summer and left up to each jurisdiction.
White said many courts had reinstated bail for certain crimes, but in Lake County all property-related crimes had been left at zero bail. “It created some unique situations.”
He said he’s given feedback to decision makers and has seen some progress. The matter was brought back to the Lake County Superior Court, which just made some offenses bookable again.
There also had been significant challenges in the District Attorney’s Office, which at one point had started declining to file some misdemeanor cases for a period of time, White said.
White said his department has worked with the District Attorney’s Office on direct filing some misdemeanors as infractions to help alleviate pressure on the court system.
He also noted that last year's department had 400 arrest warrants but the Superior Court has been backlogged because of COVID, resulting in a lot of cases stacking up.
Last year, Clearlake Police implemented Livescan booking and rolled out new electric mountain bikes for officers to patrol parts of the city.
It also used its automated license plate recognition program to solve 73 cases, primarily involving recoveries of stolen vehicles. White said they’ve gotten good at intercepting stolen vehicles, noting that one stolen vehicle from Los Angeles came into the city and within a few minutes they identified it and were able to intercept and recover it.
White reported the following code enforcement statistics for 2021:
• 528 property cases, down 62 from the previous year;
• 834 vegetation cases, down 621;
• 387 vehicles abated, up by 122;
• 131 cannabis cases, down 72;
• 2,203 administration citations, down 120;
• 866 parking citations, up 477;
• Five vacant building registrations;
• 1161 abandon tags, up 496.
Clearlake Animal Control recorded 391 intakes, with 179 of those animals going to rescues and 20 being adopted. There were 324 licenses.
He said recruitment remains a challenge. Last year, they had 50 applicants for police officer positions but hired just three. For dispatchers, there were 92 applicants but just one hire. While they have another promising candidate, there is a planned retirement this summer. “Staff doing an incredible job,” White said.
In addition to recruitment and retention, a focus area has been training and leadership, White said.
He said he’s incredibly proud of the work his staff does.
“We are a statistically safer city, and we are becoming a cleaner city,” he said.
In other business on Thursday evening, the council supported sending a letter in support of the Lake Area Planning Council’s pursuit of a rural regional energy network, or RuralREN, to deliver energy efficiency programs to the community, and voted to confirm assessments for city-funded abatements on six properties.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.