Imperial Beach Sheriff Substation Call Report April 1 thru 5, 2021

Last year the Imperial Beach City Council passed a Resolution to create an Ad-Hoc Committee consisting of two members of the City Council to direct Staff in an analysis of the San Diego County Sheriff Department's use of force policies and the fiscal impacts of the current contract.

Consultants were hired and a report was created, but it failed to include any information regarding the Calls for Service that the Sheriff’s Department Imperial Beach substation receives. At the time City Staff, Councilmen, and Consultants claimed the Sheriff’s Department refused to release the information and nobody on the Taxpayers’ payroll had the ‘power’ to collect the information.

Below is the Call History of the Imperial Beach Substation for the time period of April 1st through 5th, 2021:

Of the 463 calls recorded; 254 or 55% of the calls were inside of Imperial Beach. The most used call codes were 77 calls for information, 71 calls were recorded for extra patrol, 23 traffic stops, 21 incomplete wireless, 21 security checks, 16 suspicious person, and 15 phone calls.

Code XPAT & EXTRA: Extra Patrol. A total of 71 calls were for ‘extra patrol’. 40 of the calls were inside of Imperial Beach and 31 were outside of Imperial Beach. 21 of the Imperial Beach calls occurred between 11am on Thursday and 3am Friday. There’s another cluster of 10 extra patrol calls recorded between 10pm Saturday night and 1am Sunday Morning. It appears that the Deputies occasionally drive around marking ‘xpatrol’ four or five times, then return to the Station. The Sheriff’s Department is paid by other agencies when called for extra patrol outside of the Sheriff’s service area.

Code 1153: Security Check. There were 21 calls recorded under code 1153, but the ‘security checks’ are for government buildings located in San Diego at 715 W. Cedar Street, 1100 Union Street, and 1600 Pacific Coast Highway. The County Sheriff’s Department is paid to provide scheduled patrols to government buildings.

Sheriff response codes are prioritized based on importance. Priority ‘0’ is reserved for Officer needs Help, Foot Pursuit, Traffic Pursuit, and Unit Emergency. Priority ‘1’ is for Serious Accidents, Plane Crashes, Blood Run, and SWAT.

Priority ‘2’ contains over 60 call types such as Stolen Vehicle, Bomb Threat, Armed Robbery, DWI, Assaults, Burglaries, Child Abuse, Missing Child or a Person of Risk, Kidnapping, and Dropped Phone Calls. Priority ‘3’ contains 13 codes including Hit & Run, Reckless Driving, Drag Racing, Escaped Prisoners, and Child Stealing - Court Order.

Priority ‘4’ contains almost 70 codes including Traffic Stops, Disturbances, Assault, Burglary, Missing Person, Welfare Check, and Hate Crimes. Priority ‘5’ contains 35 codes ranging from Animal Bite, Marijuana Possession and/or Cultivation, Begging, Illegal Camping, Illegal Vendor, Rape, and Reports. Yes, rape and begging are the same priority to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department.

Priority ‘6’ contains over 20 codes including Security Check, Ballgame in Street, Gambling, Citizen Assist, Ordinance Violation, Arson, Disturbances, and Lost Animals. Priority ‘7’ contains 40 codes including, Lost Property, Abandoned Vehicle, Public Relations, Phone Calls, and Found, Dead or Injured Animals. Code 7 also provides codes for Eating and Bathroom breaks, but no breaks were recorded by the San Diego Sheriff Deputies.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department charges the City of Imperial Beach $8 million/year, which is $625,000/month or $20,000/day. In the five day period from April 1st through 5th, 2021, the San Diego Sheriff Call Logs recorded the Officers spending half their time outside of Imperial Beach and very few of the calls for service inside I.B. required a murder weapon.

City of Imperial Beach Report on an Examination of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Operations in the City of Imperial Beach: https://imperialbeachca-my.sharepoint.com/personal/communications_imper…