Coronado’s Sometimes-Criticized Police Chief Resigns

Nearly a decade ago, Jerry Boyd rode into Coronado a flamboyant figure, a lawman who nabbed suspects in high-speed chases, responded to late-night police calls and made many of his own arrests.

Pretty unusual for the chief of police.

His aggressiveness brought criticism, especially from the police union that was battling management in the mid-1980s. But Boyd continued to pull on the uniform and steer a patrol car through town when he felt like it.

Come Jan. 11, he will cross the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge and leave for a new job as chief of police in the Northern California town of Martinez, in Contra Costa County. The two cities share similarities: population, department size and a low crime rate.

Boyd, 44, said Thursday he believed he had accomplished just about all he could in upscale Coronado, where, in the chief’s 10-year tenure, two people have been slain.

The most pressing order of the day is getting a new police station for the force of 43 uniformed officers and 17 civilian officers and staff members. Plans have been approved, and construction is scheduled to begin next summer.

When Boyd got to town in 1981, he already had spent eight years as a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and sergeant and six years as a lieutenant and captain for the Irvine Police Department in Orange County.

While captain, Boyd said, he got into a run-in with Irvine’s police chief, who had tried to destroy a police report on an Irvine city councilwoman, which led to Boyd being assigned a 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift with no command responsibility.

In Coronado, Boyd was branded a frustrated cop by police critics when, in his first year, he went undercover and helped rescue a 3-year-old girl from a kidnaper after negotiating for nearly an hour. The incident brought Boyd fleeting fame in the national media.

Some officers believed Boyd would have better served the department sitting behind a desk, instead of leading the troops into battle, making his own arrests and even using physical force, by his own count, on at least a half a dozen occasions.

Nearly four years ago, the Coronado Police Officers Assn. asked for either the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department or the state attorney general to investigate allegations that Boyd used excessive force and profanity during a 1987 arrest of a robbery suspect and that he improperly used police video equipment.

Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller reviewed the matter, called the allegations “frivolous” and said no investigation was warranted.

A television videotape of the suspect’s arrest showed Boyd holding a revolver and twice shouting, “Shut your . . . mouth” while police held the suspect. Boyd said he was justified in using profanity at the time because he was dealing with “an ex-con.” Boyd also defended punching the suspect in the stomach because the suspect was about to kick an officer.

In an interview Thursday, Boyd described the criticism in the mid-’80s as the low point of his career in Coronado and said it was raised only because of labor disputes with the city’s police union. Despite the second-guessing, he said he wouldn’t change his tactics.

“I will continue to put on a uniform and go out and ride in Martinez,” he said. “I contend that the chief should have firsthand knowledge of what his people are doing. I need to know that city and I won’t get to know it sitting behind a desk.”

Martinez has a population of 30,332, and 45 sworn officers, compared to Coronado’s 23,681 population and 43 sworn officers.

According to 1989 FBI statistics, Coronado had no murders, eight rapes, 12 robberies, 26 aggravated assaults, 166 burglaries, 551 thefts and 151 auto thefts. During the same time frame, Martinez had one murder, six rapes, 24 robberies, 36 aggravated assaults, 336 burglaries, 912 thefts and 146 auto thefts.

Detective Keith James, a member of the Coronado Police Officers Assn., said Boyd’s years in the city were positive.

“On one hand, we’re losing a good chief,” James said. “On the other hand, we’re excited by the change. But the chief’s going to be missed. He’s done a lot. He’s just up for a different challenge now.”