OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday said that more California Highway Patrol officers will partner with East Bay law enforcement as part of an ongoing, targeted effort to fight crime.
The enhanced law enforcement effort builds upon Newsom’s August announcement that highway patrol officers would descend on Oakland and in February the greater East Bay, focusing on violent crime, as well as retail and vehicle theft. The move was intended to assuage people’s concerns.
Newsom said in a Thursday press conference that the enforcement push led to the recovery of 1,142 stolen vehicles, 562 arrests and 55 firearms that were linked to crimes.
“That’s the operation to date,” the governor said. “It’s been successful.”
Newsom emphasized that, after these successes, he doesn’t intend to walk away from the area. Instead, current highway patrol operations that put seven uniformed officers on the streets two to three times a week will be increased to 20 officers seven days a week. Highway patrol officials declined to provide the number of officers that will be deployed for specific events.
Law enforcement leaders touted the cooperation and coordination between agencies.
“The CHP is all in,” said highway patrol Commissioner Sean Duryee.
Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell said he looks forward to continued cooperation with the highway patrol, noting that his office also works with federal agencies to address crime.
The enhanced law enforcement presence is slated to last four months and will start next week.
Additionally, the state Department of Justice will take on the prosecution of certain offenses. Newsom said he’s been disappointed in the lack of engagement by the Alameda County district attorney.
The district attorney’s office couldn’t be reached for comment.
“This is the Swiss Army knife of law enforcement in the state,” Newsom said of the highway patrol, noting the organization has been called to work on fentanyl and retail theft operations, as well as on school campuses.
The fentanyl and retail theft issues have grown into crises in California. Last year, it led state Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas to create a Select Committee on Retail Theft.
Out of that committee came a package of bills that would tweak aspects of Proposition 47 — which 10 years ago reduced penalties for certain drug and property crime offenses, leading critics to deem it the cause of the state’s retail theft problems.
The bills range in focus from changing the legal requirement to convict someone of breaking into a vehicle to imposing harsher penalties on people who start fires during a retail theft.
Newsom said Thursday he looks forward to seeing those bills on his desk soon. Those measures are currently working their way through the legislative process.
However, one of those bills is in peril, as it failed to pass out of the Assembly Public Safety Committee.
Senate Bill 1502 — written by state Senator Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat — would add the drug xylazine to the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act. Ashby told Courthouse News that the drug, which is often used with fentanyl, should only be legal for use by veterinarians treating large animals.
Ashby on social media has called out Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, a Sacramento Democrat and chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, for stopping the bill. Newsom in a press conference earlier this week also pointed to the bill.
“I felt it a huge mistake that a member of the Legislature killed the tranq bill,” Newsom said, using a street name for xylazine.
Democrats favor the crime bill package as a way to augment Proposition 47, while Republicans want a citizen-initiated ballot measure to pass in November that would repeal the proposition.
Democratic leaders early this month floated their own competing ballot measure that was called complementary to the crime bill package. However, it was pulled from consideration only days later.
Newsom on Thursday rejected the citizen-backed measure as the right way to address the crime problem. He said that measure focuses on drugs only and not retail theft, indicating that its passage will lead to more people being incarcerated.
“Where’s that money coming from?” he asked of the increased costs of jailing people.
“I think all of us will pay a huge price if this passes,” he added. “I hope that folks take a look at this initiative. Where do the dollars come from? How do we finance this?”
Newsom said time will tell the outcome of the enhanced law enforcement action.
“We’ll be back and we have your back, Oakland and Alameda,” he said.