- I was never in the military - It is true that I do a lot of things that involve our service members. Some have assumed I am a military service veteran. I helped start a Christmas/holiday card writing campaign a few years ago for our service members. I also helped with the resurgence of welcome home parades and celebrations (I had a ton of help and the credit should go entirely to them). I try to recognize their sacrifices to our great nation as much as I can, because I think it is the right thing to do. I think many of you agree with me. So with that, I have never had the honor of serving our country in the military, but like my fellow brothers/sisters in blue, I've made a career out of serving all of you stateside. I am very proud of each and every one of our vets and active duty service members and will do just about anything to help them.
- I have worked for three different police departments - After graduating from the State Center Peace Officers Academy in Fresno, CA (Class 46). I started my career as a full-time police officer in the City of Los Banos. I worked a bunch of different assignments, helped write a few grants and promoted to the rank of Sergeant. I was fortunate to have worked with supervisors that understood the value of mentoring. I had a lot of fun there and I learned the value of community policing (see below for more on this). I left Los Banos PD in 2001 and lateraled to Redwood City PD. At Redwood City PD I worked patrol with a bunch a very motivated and professional police officers. I got to work with some fantastic examples of leadership. I also learned the value of being truly a team when tackling complex cases/issues. The commute to Redwood City and from Los Banos was killing me though (104 miles one way). So, having worked in Hollister during the rally a few years in a row, I was familiar with Hollister PD and some of the personnel. I applied at HPD in the spring of 2003 and was hired a month or two later in August of 2003. The rest is history......
- My very first job was as a janitor - I was 15 years old. My friend Scott Betty looked me up at school. He said, "are you looking for work this summer?" I said, "sure." He said, "go to Millers Landing on Saturday and talk to the boss. He is looking for some help this summer and I already recommended you for the job." I did what he suggested and got the job. My duties included cleaning bathrooms/showers, emptying trash and the cleaning the restaurant kitchen. The Miller's were great people to work for. They expected a completely spotless kitchen and that's what I gave them every morning that first summer of work. The Miller's moved me to the marina the next year. That's where I picked up my old handle "Dockman Dave". So, thank you Scott Betty for the recommendation!
- I don't like cooked/baked fruit/most pies (with a few exceptions) - This one does have a few exceptions. I always say I don't like cooked fruit & most pies, but if I am being honest, there's a lot of holes in that statement. I don't like apple, cherry, berry, pumpkin (okay most) pies. I only like pecan and coconut creme pies (no meringue!). I also like only blackberry and grape (maybe a few similar ones) jelly. I don't eat apricot, strawberry or really any other kinds of jelly. Although I do like jalapeno jelly for some reason. I freely admit I am the weird one on this.
- Community Policing - I was NOT a big fan of this concept as it was presented to me as a young officer. I wanted to drive a patrol car and chase bad guys. I didn't understand the concept of teaming up with community members to effect positive change. This was probably due to my age, level of maturity and my not as broad view as the ranking officers. You see, the patrol officer see's what is in front of him and tackles the problem, looking actively for the solutions to the immediate issue they respond to. His/her supervisor see the patrol officers and the issues and calls for service they are handling in their shift and their beats. The Lieutenant, sees the Sergeants who are in charge of teams of patrol officers that take care of their beats, citywide. The Captain sees the Lieutenants, who are monitoring the Sergeants, who are watching their teams, citywide. The Chief, see's the Captain, who sees the Lieutenants, who see the Sergeants, who are watching their teams of patrol officers, who are effecting change and solving problems citywide/region wide. I had a really smart Chief of Police. His name was Chief Mike Hughes. He was all about community policing, and mentioned the concept to me often. He wanted to do outreach in the highest crime areas, to provide a conduit to his officers and police department, to hopefully effect positive outcomes. Since I was the last guy that wanted anything to do with this, he of course chose me to lead this effort (lol). We opened up to mini-community centers in the highest crime area's. Our little offices, were in apartment complexes. They were fairly dirty little shanty's but, in the end, worked quite well for the purposes of outreach. I will admit, I was almost an instant convert. I started bringing basketballs, footballs and a glove and baseball in my patrol car. If I saw kids playing in our parks or schools, I got out of my patrol car and played with them. When I went to these little community centers, if I was confronted with a neighborhood problem (how ever minor), I took action to try and solve it or coordinated efforts to make it better. Again, this was sort of renaissance for me in my way of thinking and I saw that community policing, really should be the standard in which we should try to achieve in our operations. I still believe that today. Community policing is a partnership between law enforcement and the community they serve. To me its a completely natural relationship and we need to encourage and foster that way of thinking, here in our community.
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Jr Giants - jrgiants.org is where you need to sign your children up for our free baseball program. Also please consider signing yourself up as a coach or team parent. Its all completely free and we really need your help to have a successful program for our communities kids (no experience is necessary and we will provide the training for free).
Until next time,
Be good to each other,
Chief
