S.D. Police Won’t Back It : Rancho Bernardo Patrol by Volunteers Discouraged

The idea of a community alert patrol, in which volunteers drive around as a deterrent to crime, should be scuttled because it does not have the backing of the San Diego Police Department, the Rancho Bernardo Community Council will be told tonight.

“From the very beginning, we have said that a (volunteer citizen) patrol must have the approval of the San Diego Police Department. But we did not point-blank ask that question of the right people until last week,” said Don Clark, who headed a committee looking into the idea of a Neighborhood Watch-on-wheels.

Clark said that when his group specifically asked for the endorsement of the Police Department, he was told that it could not support a “group action” that served only one part of the city.

“So while we voted 4 to 3 that it was a good idea, our recommendation to the Community Council will be that the idea be abandoned, because it is not acceptable to the Police Department,” Clark said.

Police Capt. Joe Schwalbach, commanding officer of the department’s Northeastern Station, which serves this community, said Wednesday that the department was concerned about the risk of injury to the volunteers.

“If they just want to report crime to the Police Department, that’s fine,” Schwalbach said. “But we don’t want people to get in a situation where they can get harmed. With a formal motorized patrol, I see that happening.”

Clark said he was disappointed by the department’s position.

“My big disappointment is that they didn’t state this at the very outset. It would have saved us a lot of money and a lot of headaches and, I’m afraid, some friendships,” Clark said. “It (the committee’s work) could have been finished in two weeks rather than two months.”

As part of its study, the committee traveled to Sun City, Ariz., where the members met with members of that retirement community’s patrol, which is formally deputized by the county sheriff to patrol the streets in marked cars with sophisticated radio communications equipment. Some members of the Sun City Posse are qualified and licensed to carry weapons, but members of the Rancho Bernardo committee said there was never any intention that the local patrol be armed.

One member of the committee heads Rancho Bernardo’s home-based community alert network, and has argued that rather than turning to cars, the community should strengthen the Neighborhood Watch program and lobby for additional police officers.

Rancho Bernardo currently is served by one patrol car, around the clock. The master-planned community of 27,000 has one of the lowest crime rates of any region in San Diego.