Community Policing Comes to Martinez

By Gary Peterson, Martinez Chief of Police

When Chief Tom Simonetti retired on December 17, 2010, I was appointed Chief of Police for the City of Martinez.  During the process leading up to my appointment, I advised the City Council that I intended to enhance our community policing efforts by implementing a new policing approach designed to facilitate direct personal communication between our officers and the community members.  The approach is called Neighborhood Policing.   I recently spoke on this initiative at the State of the City breakfast.   

Neighborhood Policing is not a program.  Rather, it's a strategy designed to improve how our officers and staff interact with the public.  The fundamental feature of this new approach is that every Martinez police officer will have direct responsibility for a designated area in the city, which is called a Neighborhood Policing Area (NPA).  Each police officer will be assigned to an area and each sergeant will be responsible for a number of officers. Every person who lives or works within a particular area will have access to their NPA officer for the purpose of dealing with local problems and concerns or to just chat about law enforcement issues.  The NPA’s will be posted on the police department's web page and a link will enable area residents to e-mail the assigned officer and their supervisor directly.

This approach should provide continuity in the relationships the department is seeking to establish with the community and help increase trust and understanding.  It will allow the department to intelligently focus its efforts and resources where they are needed most.

With this new initiative, the department’s current service delivery process and organizational configuration needs modification.  The modified will address the successful coordination of the NPA and ensure our supervisors are available to monitor and supervise personnel deployed in the field. 

Currently, our organizational framework consists of two divisions; the Field Services Division and the Administrative Services Division.   We are in the process of reorganizing the departmental structure to facilitate the implementation of this new initiative.   We have a team working on different aspects of the project and hope to roll it out in the near future.