The Atascadero Police Department is taking a multi-faceted approach when it comes to addressing the city’s deeper issues by adding another resource to its toolbox.
Police Chief Daniel Suttles told New Times that the special enforcement team is brand new to the police department as of late November, and it intends to investigate the city’s ongoing issues.
Consisting of two trained detectives per team, the enforcement officers follow-up on reports and will investigate further if needed—something that patrol officers don’t have the time to do.
“The special enforcement team is just like it sounds. We typically have some issues that maybe need some attention that a patrol officer wouldn’t be able to give,” Suttles said, listing a feud between neighbors over a barking dog as an example. “One patrol officer comes and takes a report. Well, he’s out of that now. He’s gone. Then the special enforcement team can give follow-up and attention to those things.”
Suttles said the team could also be a solution for youth loitering near a local bridge, for example. Suttles said the team would be ideal responders for any reports of trouble among students in locations not accessible by police cars.
Alongside bickering neighbors and troublesome youth, the team could also help with cases of graffiti and homelessness issues.
While the city has its own Community Action Team (CAT)—a team of four professionals within the fields of law enforcement, health care, and social work that work directly with unhoused residents to provide resources—the special enforcement team could work in tandem with CAT to help solve issues on a more systematic level.
While CAT helps unhoused residents gain access to mental health and drug rehabilitation resources, Suttles said special enforcement officers could look at the larger picture—not focusing on the drug users themselves but investigating where they are receiving those drugs.
“If we have individuals who are homeless, and they have an intersecting factor of drug addiction, … I know if I have people who are using drugs, that means someone’s supplying those drugs. So, the special enforcement team can be like, ‘You know what? We’re not focused on the individuals using them,'” he said. “I want the special enforcement team to go out and try to figure out who’s supplying these drugs. How are they getting here? … It’s kind of an indirect way, but I think it’s an effective one.”
Being that the team is so new, Suttles said the enforcement officers aren’t on the streets just yet and are in the process of going through training.
“It’s too new to tell you whether or not we’ve had any headway in this area. I’ve been sending them to training,” Suttles said. “I’m sending them to detective school—all these different schools to be able to be trained to do these things. So I’m waiting for them to be all ramped up, and then we’ll get them on the street and see how effective it is.”
In other efforts to improve community health and safety, the City Council recently passed a shopping cart ordinance, which requires retail stores to place a placard on each shopping card to claim ownership of it.
As many unhoused residents take shopping carts illegally to store and transfer belongings, Suttles said the ordinance would be used to first deter cart theft. If carts are still taken, the ordinance would allow police to confiscate them immediately so the owner can reclaim it.
The ordinance’s purpose is to enhance community cleanliness and to regulate unauthorized removal of shopping carts and retrieval of abandoned or unattended shopping carts, Suttles told the City Council at a meeting on Aug. 13. The council approved the ordinance on Sept. 10.
“That gives us the ability to actually implement what’s already been on the books since before I was a police officer, so it’s been there for a long time. So, that’s another [method] we have,” Suttles said. Δ
This article appears in Jan 2-12, 2025.