Divide and conquer crime

Capt. Les Gogerty doesn’t want the newly implemented Costa Mesa police area command to be likened to Costa Mesa being split into two cities, or their department into two parts.

Yet with the department’s new strategy, local enforcement becomes — at times — four local enforcements, with Costa Mesa being sliced in two, with each section having two new pieces of its own.

To establish area command, the city was divided along the golf course and Victoria Street, and those two sections will be two beats of their own.

The new enforcement strategy aims to increase communication and make police work more personally — not to mention more efficiently.

This change allows police to focus their patrols. Instead of a team of police working the entire city, smaller teams will work smaller areas, learn local problems and form area-specific solutions, with each area’s superior held accountable.

“Bottom line is when you have area command, when you have specific areas of responsibility, you increase accountability,” Gogerty said. With the old method “no one particular commander was held accountable for anything other than what they were doing on their shift.”

Each area will have a more direct line of communication, according to Gogerty, who is in charge of patrol. Officers cover beats in teams, they report to a sergeant who runs the team, and he reports to a lieutenant who runs an area. Due to their personal involvement in specific locations, it also gives officers and their commanders the chance to establish relationships with neighborhoods and each area’s unique problems.

“There is more personal attention and involvement,” Sgt. Bryan Glass said. “More interest and ownership to the problem and solving it.”

It is important to note that emergency calls, as well as special details, will still be open to the entire city, according to Gogerty.

Gang units, special enforcement, detectives and traffic all work citywide, but the command supports strengthening community ties, giving citizens and council members more of an opportunity to express concerns to police, he said.

“If an urgent call or emergency call comes in, everyone is available to it,” Gogerty said. “If it is specific to their area and not an emergency type call, then [the specific beat] would handle it.”

Gogerty also addressed concerns the enforcement would alienate certain parts of the city.

“I don’t see it as an issue because the city is not that big,” he said. “We are not creating two separate departments.”

This type of police work isn’t completely new. A few years back the city was divided into three areas, but the station went back to team policing before switching again to area command this year, according to Glass.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at [email protected].