A public safety state of emergency was declared in Vallejo Tuesday as the police department is continuing to see a decline in sworn staffing.
For years, the department has struggled with recruiting and retaining officers and it currently has about 50 vacancies.
The state of emergency means the Vallejo city manager and police chief now have the power to take necessary actions to help with staffing.
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For example, if there are no officers for a shift, they can implement something like 12-hour shifts immediately. Temporarily putting off a sit down with unions, which is usually step one.
According to interim police Chief Jason Ta, the declaration can also prompt the city to seek help from outside agencies. That could be local, state or even federal agencies.
Lastly, it's raising public awareness about the crisis the department is going through. The police department is down to just 34 patrol officers, including officers from a recently-disbanded traffic division.
And that number is expected to shrink even more with three officers leaving within the next month.
On Tuesday night, the chief made it clear that if there’s no changes soon, he may have to eliminate the last four detective positions to get more officers on patrol -- a situation that created outrage in Tuesday night's meeting.
“We have a lot of crime in the city that cannot be often times solved by a patrol officer, it would involve a follow up investigation. If we get to the point where all investigations have to be conducted at the patrol level, we're going to see very bad outcomes,” said Ta.
“My one and only son was murdered recently here in Vallejo in broad daylight, the police have not been able to focus on the investigation due to staffing issues,” said a Vallejo resident.
The police department says it is working to hire more officers.
Right now, five candidates are in the background check phase. But even if they pass the background check, they’ll still have to go through the academy and field training -- a process that can take up to 24 months.
It's important to note the Vallejo Police Department has been under scrutiny for years now and is currently under supervision by the California DOJ, following a number of police shootings since 2020.
There are some limitations that were added to the declaration. The city manager can’t sign any emergency contracts that are over $100,000 without city councils’ permission.
And the council wants a 24 to 48 hour notice of any major changes.
