During Tuesday night’s Antioch City Council meeting, Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando reported that they saw declining police stats since the beginning of the year.
He reported a double digit decrease in violent crime and total property crime. Violent crime is down 89-incidents (577 total) when compared to this time period last year while property crime is down 384-incidents (2,799 total). Robbery is down 14 % while assaults are down 13.2%
Overall, Part 1 Crime is down 473-incidents (or 12.3%) when compared to last year while total arrests are up 17.2%.
Cantando also reported that for the first 9-months of 2015, their Special Operations Unit has made 85 arrests while conducting 23-search warrants and 26 probation/parole searches. This unit has seized 18 guns, had 6 marijuana grows while seizing 4,094 plans, 857 grams of meth, 3378 grams of cocaine, 156 grams of heroin and 158 ecstasy.
Although Antioch Police saw an increase in calls for service by 3.5%, they did see a decrease in Priority 1 calls by 3.4% (6,165 total). The response times also dropped from 10:36 minutes at this time last year to 9:58 minutes.
Between January – September, Antioch Police have had 54 Crime Suppression Operations which netted 224 cases, 275 arrests while seizing 14-firearms. They also issued 201 citations.
Chief Cantando also reported that although they have 102 authorized sworn positions, they have 88-positions filled with two per-Diem command staff. They are hoping to have 2 recruits join the force in November after they have been in the academy since May.
He also announced two recruits have also started the academy in September and expected to hit the streets in March if they are successful.
Chief Cantando also highlighted that the police department does not have a hiring problem, they have an attrition problem as they can’t control retirements, medicals and people leaving. Since November of 2011, the department have hired 28 sworn officers, however the total number of separations is 22—leaving the police with a net gain of 6 additional officers. Since January, the department has received 1,216 applicants.
EBRCS Update:
Chief Cantando announced that on Wednesday before 9:00 am, they will be going live with the EBRCS System.
“I will tell you, it’s a great thing and emotional thing to me,” said Cantando. “This is for officer safety and public safety. The council at the time could have said no, we don’t have the money, but the council did that and because of that when I came to you and asked for you the $1.8 million radio system, but myself and Captain Brooks met with the EBRCS community and made the argument that we were part of the EBRCS system but were not live. I am happy to report that we were informed that our consoles will be given to us and we will be receiving a refund $439,617. Keep in mind that would not have happened if the council at that time said we could not afford it.”
Cantando called it a great thing for the community and will make the community safer.
Monica Wilson asked about EBRCS package that the city purchased, was the encryption included?
Chief explained that every agency who has EBRCS has the same system, each agency has the option of installing an encryption key and Antioch chose to do that.
“Basically is that what people need to understand is that when we have a scanner app, everyone out there can hear us. When I talk about this encryption key, everyone had an opportunity to install it, but we are the only ones to install it along with Brentwood because we service them… we are doing it for officer and public safety reasons,” said Cantando. “When criminals have these scanners and scanner apps they are using them.”
William Dee, POA President
Cantando provided three examples from commercial burglaries using river rocks breaking windows. He also noted it’s easy for someone to count officers and their locations to find the ideal time to commit crime. Another example was a residential burglary, they no longer have to do silent dispatch—instead of checking their computers in the car and receiving updates through the computer, can be direct air traffic with updates.
“I am opportunistic we will see reductions in crime because the criminals will not be knowing what we are doing or when we are busy or not busy or dispatched to a scene,” explained Cantando.
The police will also be disabling their scanner app on their police app that was released earlier this year.
Officer William Dee, President of the Antioch Police Officers Association also spoke in support of the encryption saying there have been many times where they have arrested many people using scanners and this will provide police with an advantage.
The POA spoke that transparency is already there and that they will continue to do things professionally.
