Antioch Police Report Crime Down 1.3 Percent, Dispute’s Brentwood Dispatch Center Claims

During Thursdays Antioch City Council Meeting, Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando reported that overall crime in the city over the first nine-months of the year was down 1.3%.

Cantando highlighted that the total violent crime for the first three quarters of this year is down 9.8% with what is driving that number back up is the amount of auto thefts which is also a regional problem.

There was an increase in arrests of adults by 15.1% while juvenile arrests were down 10.8%–a net total increase was 10% higher arrest for first three quarters in 2014.

Special Operations Unit:

• Search Warrants: 22
• Probation/Parole Searches: 29
• Marijuana Grows: 11
• Marijuana (Plants) Seized: 5,725
• Marijuana (Processed) Seized: 13.5 lbs
• Meth Seized: 8.9 oz
• Cocaine Seized: 3.2 oz
• Guns Seized: 34
• Cash Seized: $95,269

Fugitive Apprehension (Jan-June 2014)

• Total operations: 7
• Cases involved: 7
• No. of Arrests: 7

Special Investigation Unit – 10 call outs

• 6 – Homicide
• 1 – Kidnapping
• 1 – Robbery/Homicide
• 2 – OIS

Antioch Police reported that Calls for Service in the first 9-months of 2014 was at 60,969 which was down 0.1 from 2013 where they had 61,036 Calls for Service. Priority 1 calls were down 3.4% while Priority 2 calls were down 4.8%.

Response Times was 10:30 seconds; we are now 15-seconds higher than last year. 15-seconds does not seem like a lot, but when you are waiting for an officer it feels like an eternity.

K9 arrests had 106. A k9 is a workforce multiplier, when people do see the k9 they do not run. When they do they are caught.

Police Staffing Levels

As of November 10, Antioch Police currently have 97 sworn officers, 95 sworn positions are filled, 10 are in Field Training Program, 2 sworn vacancies and 2 dispatch vacancies.

Since January 10, the Department has had 18 hires, 3 retires, 2 resignations, 2 terminations for a net change of +11.

Crime Suppression Detail: June – Sept, 2014

• 18 Operations
• 104 cases
• 128 arrests
• 17 guns off street
• 31 Citations
• 381 enforcement contacts.

Pizza With the Police
Coffee with the cops to be held Wed, November 19^th from 7-9pm in the community room.

 Council Discussion

Councilman Tony Tiscareno highlighted that even though the perception out there is still frustrating that there are positive things the police department is doing and I want to point those out.

“We are continuing to hire, the 10 officers will be out and hopefully will perform on the street. The foot traffic you mentioned is very proactive and something we need to continue to see. When the community sees our officers out in the street and communicating with residents that a good thing,” said Tiscareno. “The Suppression Details are important. You now have fresh bodies , we ought to continue to pursue those things. Regardless of Prop. 47 and what it is, we need to stop these folks and will take it as is after the fact.”

Councilwoman Mary Rocha thanked the Chief for making himself available to the Spanish speaking community. She highlighted the city is running in support of our police.

Councilwoman Monica Wilson requested some clarification on the recent decision from Brentwood to move away from the Antioch Dispatch Center. She asked for his perspective and how it came to be.

“The City of Brentwood has always wanted its own dispatch center,” stated Cantando. “We knew it was coming, what is somewhat frustrating for myself and staff is we were in talks with Brentwood for a year and had several meetings and took up a lot of staff time and the whole point of the meeting was to reduce Brentwoods cost.”

Cantando notes that they accommodated Brentwood, reduced their cost and changed the formula to keep their business.

“When I was told about this not too long ago that this is what they were doing. I was taken back,” said Cantando.

Wilson asked about dispatch calls and some of the resident complaints from Brentwood.

“In the staff report (Brentwood) there was complaints from citizens so I had our staff go back through our Professional Standards staff, go back and look at complaints about our dispatchers. Over the last two years, we had just two formal complaints made by Antioch residents,” explained Cantando. “That is not to say there was not many more complaints that came in but they were informal. What I mean by that is someone would call in to the police dept. or get ahold of myself, command staff or sergeant and say the dispatch was rude and did this or did that.”

He further highlighted that the benefit of the Dispatch Center is that everything is recorded. They are able to take that recording of the citizen and play it to them if they have concerns.

Cantando further highlighted that when people call into the dispatch center, they are of a mindset much different than when they are talking to myself or someone else.

“What they need to understand, first there is no room for rudeness, that is unacceptable but a dispatcher is trying to get information of an in-progress crime, the dispatcher has a certain criteria of information he or she is going to ask those questions,” said Cantando. “Sometimes the public does not really understand is that what they think is important, really isn’t important for an officer safety component. So we would contact that person and say this is what occurred would you still like to move forward. We have the audio and 99% of the time, I do not remember it like that but I am hearing it. I think we are good.

He noted the importance that if it was going on in Brentwood, he was not contacted about the issues.

“I think it would have been important for them to notify me or a member of my command staff so we could have done something about it. But if I do not know about it, there is not a lot I am going to do,” said Cantando.

Wilson asked if the Chief did reach out to Brentwood.

“For the last year, we had been talking about different perceptions about what was going on with the Dispatch Center… we addressed their concerns thinking everything was going to be fine and apparently they are moving forward with their own system,” said Cantando.