Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared at a memorial service for fallen police officers this week to praise the California Highway Patrol for its “unprecedented” work after sending officers across the state to help combat organized retail theft rings and fentanyl trafficking. work.
Newsom’s administration, facing growing political pressure, has turned to the Republican Party to address growing crime concerns and quell contentious and sometimes violent student protests on college campuses over the Gaza war.
“You’ve had people reaching out recently… all over California,” Newsom said at a CHP memorial service in Sacramento on Tuesday. “We are seizing fentanyl like never before. The work you are doing around retail theft… you have never been asked to do more.
Experts say this is not the first time a governor has deployed state troopers to local cities and is fulfilling the state police’s mission as part of the state’s mutual aid system, which serves as reinforcements if problems arise for local agencies. But his use of CHP comes at a time when California is facing national ridicule for high-profile thefts and public drug use, which could put political pressure on the governor to take visible action in response.
The governor deployed CHP officers to Bakersfield two weeks ago, which has reportedly seen a spike in auto thefts, higher rates of violent and property crime and more arrests than the statewide average.
A year ago, officers were dispatched to San Francisco to deal with fentanyl trafficking after seeing overdose deaths jump 40 percent that year. In February, Newsom welcomed the first police officers to Oakland at the request of local leaders to beef up the force as a 2023 crime report showed a 21% increase in violent crime, a 38% increase in robberies, and a 38% increase in vehicle Theft increased by 43%.
“This is not unusual,” said Lt. Diane Goldstein, who retired from the Redondo Beach Police Department and is now a visiting lecturer on criminal justice and drug policy. One lingering question, Goldstein said, is the impact on communities with sordid histories of policing.
“Law enforcement is reactive, and we don’t necessarily study the results of resource use,” she said. “We have to start doing a better job at this.”
Criminal justice advocates have been watching closely since Newsom deployed 120 California Highway Patrol troopers in Oakland and the East Bay.
José Bernal, political director of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, said the city’s combined heat and power “has a long history.”
“This is a repetitive, failed approach to addressing real concerns and problems. The solution to these problems is not to put more police in underserved communities. We are very concerned about that.”
In Oakland and other areas of the East Bay, CHP officers arrested 168 suspects associated with gangs, organized crime and carjacking groups. An additional 360 stolen vehicles were seized and 16 crime-related firearms were seized, Newsom’s office said.
In the year since CHP was deployed in San Francisco, more than 500 people have been arrested and nearly 700 pounds of fentanyl seized. In Bakersfield, authorities arrested 211 people and recovered 127 stolen vehicles in the first six weeks of the deployment.
“There are cultural concerns about the way California is portrayed,” Robert Weisberg, a law professor and co-director of the Stanford University Criminal Justice Center, said of crime rates. “It doesn’t take any great political insight to say that Newsom wants to do something very obvious. If he’s doing it for political ambition, that’s OK. Especially when you do it by doing something constructive. When one is ambitious.
Weisberg continued, “Very dramatic interventions in response to a crisis like this usually work in the short term.” But he warned that while an increase in arrests may be an indicator of success, “you have to worry about police Bad motives will be used to encourage more arrests to promote the success of the operation.”
