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Cops: Needed Now More than Ever in San Jose

Thirty-eight. This is the number of homicides that have taken place in San Jose

thus far in 2013. San Jose is on pace to break last years record of 45, which was the cities

highest in twenty years. (SJPD.org) In 2011, San Jose State was able to publicize that San

Jose was one of the safest big cities in the world, if not the safest, but two short years

later, a lot has changed. San Jose crime rates are only growing, which can be directly

related to the firing/ resigning of police officers, so San Jose needs to get back on track

and hire more cops, or else San Jose looks to be heading down a dangerous path. San

Jose has shown it has the ability to make some changes, but will it continue?

The city of San Jose has lost a lot of cops since the beginning of 2012, due to

normal retirements and budget cut layoffs, but abnormally resignations are at an alarming

rate. Over one hundred resignations have been recorded since early 2012. (SJPD.org)

One resignation that occurred was the chief of police Chris Moore, which happened this

time last year, but the issue has not yet been resolved. The search for a new chief is

ongoing, but an interim police has been named in his place, Larry Esquivel. (Colgan)

Interim San Jose Police Chief Larry Esquivel said "A few years ago we used to have

1,300 sworn and our authorized strength if we can get up to 1,109, but even at that, if we

could get a few hundred more. I would say if we could get up to 1,300 to 1,400 officers."

(Solanga: Exodus) This is after knowing the information the Mercury News reported

which says, According to the latest staffing figures, released Aug. 29, SJPD has 996

street-ready officers.All of these cops being laid off might not have seemed like a

problem to the safest big city in the United States, but it has a great affect on the safety


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of San Jose. Violent crimes, and property crime are both extremely high compared to

recent years.

Violent crimes are what a lot of people look at to determine how safe a city is, and

in San Jose there were over 340 more violent crimes in 2012 than there was in in 2011,

which was about an 11% increase. (Mercury news - Gomes) An 11% increase might

seem small, but this almost adds up to 1 extra crime violent crime per day. A violent

crime can be a homicide, rape, armed burglary, or aggravated assault. One extra per day

might not seem like a lot, but what if they added 1 extra a day for the next 10 years? San

Jose is headed in the wrong direction, but that does not mean it cannot be saved and

brought back to previous state. They will need to bring in more cops again though in

order to fight these crimes. The people know there arent as many cops out there, so they

know they have a better chance to get away with it. If there are 300 cops less roaming the

streets than there used to be, violent crimes will eventually rise, and it has.

Violent crimes have not been the only problem in San Jose, recent studies by the

FBI, showed that property crimes were up nearly 6,000 from the last 4-year averages.

Property crimes in 2010 were over 28,000, while before it was about 22,000 property

crimes a year. (Mercury News- Gomez) Citizens of San Jose dont know what to do

without the necessary amount of cops. They are doing whatever they kind to make

themselves feel safe. Citizens arming themselves and challenging burglars is an

anomaly, but people in the Hamann Park neighborhood did take the unusual step of

hiring a private security firm to patrol the park. (Mercury news/ Gomez) This goes to

show how scared the people of San Jose are, and how unprotected they feel. They dont


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feel as if they are safe, so they had to resort to their own forms of protection, guns, and

security. This is not a city that had this problem in the past.

The safety of the people of San Jose should be the biggest worry to the city, but

things done by the city have shown otherwise. San Jose is only short few years removed

from 2010, which was a decade low of twenty homicides, and much lower crime all

around (SJPD.Org) This shows that San Jose can do what needs to be done to protect the

city, and they have taken strides to return these days. At the beginning of the summer,

Esquivel called for a fight against gang violence. (Solanga: Anti gang) He implemented a

plan to stop gang violence, by adding extra patrol cars to known gang areas. Most of

these cops are working overtime, but so far it said to be working, with 188 felony arrests

due to gangs were reported from June 20 to August 10. (SJPD.org) The gang work they

have started is a start, but will they continue to have all these cops working overtime? It

will be very hard to do this, so in order to keep up these efforts they will need to have

more cops. This is a step in the right direction, but only 2 months of work is not enough.

They must continue these efforts, and hopefully return to the 2010 ways.

Police officers are often looked down upon by society, but if the last 2 years in

San Jose show anything, they really do help us and are needed to keep the people safe. It

is sad to see the recent crime rates go up so high, but things have to be done. San Jose

needs to figure out a way to get more cops on the street in order to keep a safe city. From

1300 cops down to under 1,000, this is unacceptable and the people of San Jose should

not stand for this. Through 9 months San Jose has almost doubled its 2010 homicide

total, hopefully we can return to those days, a happier and safer San Jose.

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