Rialto Police Reintroduce Bicycle Patrols, Anti-Gang Unit, Mobil Command (Press Enterprise April 27, 2008)

Rialto police reintroduce bicycle patrols, anti-gang unit, mobile command

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11:14 AM PDT on Sunday, April 27, 2008

By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise

Video: The ups and downs of Rialto police on bikes

RIALTO - The two Rialto police officers outside Wal-Mart didn't turn heads.

It was a quiet Sunday morning, and officers Shaun Mooney and Mike Morales were ticketing a car illegally parked in a handicapped space.

There wasn't a patrol car in sight -- and that was exactly the point.

"People aren't expecting police on bikes," Morales said.

He and his partner are on the department's bicycle patrol, one of several details recently revived by Chief Mark Kling after disappearing under tumultuous past administrations.

Since taking the job in late 2006, shortly after city leaders ditched a plan to disband the department and have county sheriff's deputies take over, Kling has led a steady rebuilding effort.

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Greg Vojtko / The Press-Enterprise

Rialto police officers Carla McCullough and Mike Morales are on patrol atop their bicycles on Riverside Avenue in Rialto. Officers regularly ride bicycles in pairs through the city's most troubled apartment complexes and busiest commercial centers.

An anti-gang detail, the return of bike officers and an expanded traffic division are among the changes.

"We're starting to do things that we should have been doing all along," Kling said. "We're examining every single aspect of the department and trying to make it better."

People already have noticed. When Wal-Mart's private security guard, Elizabeth Suer, saw the officers ride through the crowded parking lot, she enthusiastically flagged them down.

"It's about time," she said later of the return of bicycle officers. "We could use them here."

Pedaling Police

Mooney and Morales are members of a team of five officers who ride mountain bikes, in pairs, at least twice a month through Rialto's busiest commercials centers and most troubled apartment complexes.

The philosophy is that an officer on two wheels can go places -- both noticed and unnoticed -- that an officer in a patrol car can't.

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"We interact a lot more," Mooney said. "It's all proactive, and when we're in our cars we can't say that."

On the recent Sunday, the two officers pedaled through Rialto's downtown, then south to the stretch of motels, gas stations and shopping plazas along Interstate 10.

They stopped a homeless woman cutting copper wire behind a Hometown Buffet; a man jaywalking across busy Riverside Avenue; and a teen using a knife to slice open a pack of peanuts near a convenience store.

The longhaired, backpack-toting teen, who said he was passing through from Venice Beach to Arizona, bristled when the officers attempted to question him.

"You should thank us because you could easily get robbed standing here," Mooney told him. "We get a lot of drug dealing in this area."

A supervisor said that kind of interaction is the point of the patrols, which are slated to expand to a full-time detail in coming months.

"It gives us a leg up," said Sgt. Vince Licata, a member of the department's original bicycle patrol in the early 1990s. "There's an element of surprise to it. Most of the criminals don't expect this."

The Return

To revive the bicycle team, Rialto police reached out to the community. Local homebuilders donated thousands of dollars to purchase the bikes, special uniforms and wireless communication tools used by the officers.

The patrols were eliminated during former Chief Michael Meyers' tenure, which ended with a no-confidence vote by officers and the City Council's vote to disband the department.

By the time the council backed off that decision and an interim chief had stabilized the department, Kling inherited a force that was a shell of its former self. Dozens of officers had quit. He slowly began recruiting and budgeting improvements.

In late 2006, Kling formed the Street Crime Attack Team, made up of four gang investigators and a sergeant. He also expanded the narcotics and detective bureaus.

Today, Kling proudly points out a new $350,000 computer system in the department and a $205,000 mobile command center that can serve as a main dispatch center should power to the main station fail. The former crisis-negotiation van was a converted Frito-Lay box truck.

There still are budget issues and several open positions yet to be filled, but Kling said that the mood in the department has turned a corner.

"I think the employees here went through tremendous turmoil they'll never forget," he said. "Now, all these good ideas, they're coming from within the department."

Reach Paul LaRocco at 909-806-3064 or plarocco@PE.com

Rialto police have revived or expanded several details since the department was nearly disbanded in 2005.

Bicycle Patrols: Donations from local businesses helped purchase equipment and uniforms for the team to return last May.

Street Crime Attack

Team: Specialized anti-gang detail returned in 2006.

Mobile Command

Center: Department spent $200,000 for the crisis-negotiation vehicle that arrived last month. Officers previously used a converted Frito-Lay truck.

Source: Rialto police Department

BS Ranch Perspective:

The Rialto Police Department was the first Agency in the Inland Empire to start a Bicycle Patrol, Myself, Officer Joe Castillo (God rest his soul), then Officer Tony Farrar (now he is Capt. Tony Farrar), Officer Todd Wright, Officer Tim Lane (now Sergent Tim Lane), I believe that even Matt Huddleston (God Rest his soul) had a turn on the bikes for a short time during the start of the patrol!

At that time there was a dream of having a full time Bicycle patrol, but Capt. Becknell could not perswaide the chief to the idea of a full time Bicycle Patrol Division at that time, it was then that I switched to the Motorcycle Patrol of the Traffic Division especially since I could and was able to ride the Police Motor's before going to Motor School, with the training of the Motor Officer, which helped me during my time at Motorcycle School.

BS Ranch

Rialto Police Officer is Shot During Raid, Dies. (LA Times10-18-07)

BS Ranch Perspective

Oh my it has been a bad Day Today!! I didn't know Sergio as well as I would have liked to have known him because the little that I had gotten to know him he was a very nice person. I met him in the front of the Rialto City Council Civic Center Were the enterance is to the Rialto City Council Chambers over the Fight or the acceptance of the Rialto Police Departments Contract. I cannot remember.

My Prayers are now centered to that of Sergio's Family and his Wife & Children!! It is such a hard time for any Law Enforcement Family when one of our own Falls!!

Sergio will be missed forever from this time on.

BS Ranch

Rialto police officer is shot during raid, dies

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Officers from the Colton Police Department guard a crime scene where a Rialto police officer was killed.

A resident of a home being raided is arrested on suspicion of murder in 4-year veteran's death.

By Maeve Reston and David Kelly, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 19, 2007

A Rialto police officer was shot and killed Thursday as authorities from local and federal agencies swarmed over a troubled stretch of the city serving search warrants for illegal drugs.

Sergio Carrera Jr., 29, a four-year veteran of the force and a member of the SWAT team, was shot in the chest while he and other officers struggled with a man inside one of the targeted homes.

Investigation

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Map

Late Thursday night, Rialto Police Chief Mark Kling announced that they had arrested Jaranard Thomas, 32, of Rialto on suspicion of murder of a police officer.

He said speculation earlier in the day that another SWAT team officer had shot the fallen officer was incorrect. Kling took no questions and said the investigation was ongoing.

Police Capt. Raul Martinez did not offer details on how the shooting occurred. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department was investigating.

Carrera was airlifted to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, where he died. He was married with a 2-year-old son and a year-old daughter.

The incident began about 7 a.m. when neighbors reported smoke, explosions and shouting. SWAT teams from the Colton and Rialto police departments, along with a few agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, raided four homes on West Cascade Drive simultaneously.

Nashalla Bell was in the house with Thomas when the shooting occurred. She said she heard the front door jiggling and was worried it was the same people who did a drive-by shooting of the house Sunday morning.

Bell woke Thomas moments before police burst through the door, she said. Her 3- and 5-year-old sons ran from the kitchen where they were getting ready to eat breakfast. She said the police ordered everyone to the floor at gunpoint.

"I couldn't see anything after that, but apparently my boyfriend got up and ran to the back and another officer went after him," she said. "I heard the shot, and I heard them say, 'Officer down.' "

Neighbors reported seeing a police officer kneeling beside Carrera, crying and embracing him.

Bell said she couldn't believe Thomas shot the officer but said he had been on guard since the drive-by shooting. "I think he probably thought the same thing I thought -- that the people who shot on Sunday was coming back," she said. "I don't think he realized it was the police."

Bell said she could not see who fired the gun or whether her boyfriend had a gun. She said police told her later they recovered firearms from the house. Martinez would not say whether Thomas was armed.

Neighbors described Thomas as nonviolent and a neighborhood chef who cooked soul food in his kitchen and sold it for $10 a plate on weekends.

Myrtle Bush said Thomas held neighborhood cookouts and was planning a surprise birthday party for one of his children later Thursday. "He's more into his kids and wife than anything," said Bush, 58.

Akeyauna Brown, 18, said that when she was at Thomas' home Wednesday braiding his cornrows, he was worried about his family's safety because of the drive-by shooting.

Carrera is the second Rialto policeman to die in the line of duty. An officer was shot and killed at a gas station in 1986.

Police gathered outside department headquarters to comfort one another Thursday. Flags were lowered to half-staff. A number of squad cars, lights flashing, escorted Carrera's body from the hospital to the coroner's office.

"He was a great officer, very well liked, very well respected. It will be extremely difficult for all of us to get over this," Martinez said. "Members of our department are in shock."

City Councilwoman Deborah Robertson met with Carrera's family at the hospital.

"It really hurts that he was a young man who was really outgoing and energetic," she said. "He was fun and everyone loved him."

Robertson said childhood friends of Carrera, who grew up in the Moreno Valley area, rushed to the hospital.

The California Highway Patrol flew his wife to the hospital in a helicopter. "She's in a daze right now," Robertson said. "She is trying to care for her kids as well as support her family."

His death shocked a city struggling to get its police force back on track and trying to rein in a crime problem that has included a recent shooting death of a 16-year-old boy at a mall.

Over the last decade, its own officers have sued the department, accusing it of widespread racism and sexism. It has been criticized for slow response times and failing to curb violent crime. The City Council voted to disband the department last year and let the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department patrol the city of 100,000. A court order overturned that decision.

Robertson said the department had been trying to rebuild. "The morale and camaraderie at the department is great," he said.

Those living on West Cascade Drive tell different stories about the neighborhood. Some say it's under siege by overzealous police; others describe it as a place of drug sales and escalating crime.

Bush said police had made it so uncomfortable to be outside over the last year that she was moving out of the neighborhood.

"They come over here and make this street seem like the worst street in Rialto, which it's not," she said. She said officers believe there is gang activity in the neighborhood because young men gather on the street. But others, including Maria Herrera, said violence in Rialto had become progressively worse since she moved into her home 12 years ago.

There are still bullet holes in the side of her house from a drive-by shooting less than a year ago. "It used to be more relaxed, more calm," Herrera said. "But lately it's been getting a lot of violence."

maeve.reston@latimes.com

david.kelly@latimes.com