Improvement comes amid budget cuts, top officer reports; Benicia called one of California’s 50 safest cities

Benicia’s 2013 crime rate was the lowest in 27 years, Benicia police Chief Andrew Bidou wrote in his annual department report, in which he recognized several employees for their accomplishments last year.

Bidou cited statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCI) statistics, which showed 421 crimes reported in 2013, 13 fewer than 2012 and a significant drop from 2005, when the city reported 605 crimes, Bidou wrote.

Most of last year’s calls were for larcenies, followed by burglaries and stolen vehicles, the chief wrote. The city also had small numbers of reported aggravated assaults, robberies, arson and rapes.

The SafeWise Report, using FBI statistics for 482 incorporated municipalities, included Benicia among its 50 safest cities in California, Bidou wrote.

While it’s been reducing crime, Benicia police has reined in its budget as well, Bidou reported.

During the past two budget cycles, the department has trimmed its share by $400,000, he wrote, and those savings are expected to continue during the 2013-15 budget cycle because of steps police have taken to deliver services more efficiently and reorganization so the number of employees could be reduced.

However, department overtime, which reached a low during the 2011-12 fiscal year, rose from a low of about $220,000 to the most recent $288,734. That still is better than the department experienced in many years, Bidou wrote, and is about what the department experienced in 2003-4 and 2004-5 fiscal years.

The department made 521 adult arrests and took 92 juveniles into custody. Most of Benicia police citations were issued for traffic violations, for which 1,674 received tickets. Another 122 tickets were issued to parking violators, and 301 citations were issued for multiple other infractions. The department investigated 102 collisions.

Of 12,904 calls for service handled last year, only one citizen complaint was considered unfounded, according to Bidou’s report.

He also reported that use of cell phones while driving has dropped slightly, from 12 percent to 9 percent. Those running stop signs declined about the same, and police records show speeding dropped from 12 percent in 2012 to 7 percent last year.

Impaired driving increased slightly, from 3 percent to 5 percent; registration violators went from 6 percent in 2012 to 9 percent. Parking violations remained the same at 5 percent of the citations issued.

More people appeared to be using seat belts in 2013, Bidou wrote, when citations for that infraction dropped from 4 percent the previous year to 2 percent.

Police issued slightly fewer warnings, from 12 percent in 2012 to 9 percent last year. The bulk of the citations — 43 percent in 2012 and 42 percent last year — were for miscellaneous other causes.

In recognition of department employees’ work to lower those statistics even further, Bidou announced a series of awards.

• Officer Mark Simonson is Benicia Police Department’s Officer of the Year. Bidou described Simonson as excelling in his three-year assignment as a motor officer.

Bidou praised Simonson’s “team first” attitude and his community commitment, as well as his numerous vehicle stops and citations.

Simonson is integral to the department’s participation in Solano County’s “Avoid the 11” initiative and the California Office of Traffic Safety Checkpoint Program designed to discourage impaired driving, Bidou wrote, adding that Simonson also is active in multiple departmental community outreach programs, from the Benicia Bicycle Rodeos to Safe Routes to School, Neighborhood Watch and the Every 15 Minutes teen traffic safety participatory event.

Simonson also started a new program that focuses on school traffic, adding safeguards for pupils when they are dropped off and picked up from school.

“Mark presented this program to the Benicia Unified School District, and has received overwhelming support from district administration,” Bidou wrote.

In addition, Simonson is recognized as an expert in traffic collision reconstruction, and often investigates major collisions. He even was called to help during his day off when he was celebrating his birthday, Bidou noted, calling Simonson “an exemplary officer who possesses a great attitude and professional demeanor.”

• Tiffany Sylvester is the Dispatcher of the Year. A member of Benicia police since 2004, she has been its dispatch training officer, acting dispatch supervisor and public safety dispatch lead.

When the dispatch supervisor was on extended medical leave, she was one of four acting dispatch supervisors who assisted with scheduling, approved time cards and handled many day-to-day tasks. At the same time, she trained several new dispatchers, Bidou wrote.

She was training a new dispatcher when she received a call that an officer had stopped a vehicle that had been reported stolen. After a brief chase, the motorist stopped, drew a gun and shot at the officer, who returned fire.

Sylvester took over the police radio, dispatching in what was described as a “calm and professional manner.”

The suspect drove off and was chased until he abandoned the car, during which Sylvester monitored radio traffic from several officers and in several areas, and dispatched for hours. The suspect was caught the next day, the police report said.

Sylvester was commended by the involved officers and the on-duty sergeant for her professionalism. She also has been praised for taking initiative and going beyond expectations to find information for officers during their calls.

• Bidou awarded Chief’s Medals to the department’s two police chaplains, Jerry Pollard and Dan Wolke.

The chaplain program was started in 2001, and Bidou called it “an invaluable tool” for his department. Chaplains often are called to major incidents to give comfort and guidance to affected family members.

They were called to console a family on Elaine Way that reported a 14-month-old child had been found in a family pool. Though emergency responders performed life-saving measures, the child was pronounced dead.

The child’s parents and siblings were at home, as were family friends, Bidou wrote. Pollard was called to help the victim’s siblings, while Wolke was sent to the hospital to meet with the child’s parents.

“Throughout this tragic incident, Jerry and Dan maintained professionalism and dedication to their duties as police chaplains,” Bidou wrote.

“Tragedies involving young children are almost always considered to be the most emotional and challenging incidents in this profession.”

He praised the chaplains’ skill in helping surviving family members, saying it let responding police officers complete their investigation.

• Chief’s Medals also went to Sgt. Chris Bidou and Community Service Officer Laura Williams.

Sgt. Bidou plans and organizes the department’s K-9 training, competitions and demonstrations at schools and other public places, and handles the transfer of dogs to new handlers.

When the department retired Mirco, one of the department’s two K-9 dogs, for medical reasons, Sgt. Bidou quickly found funding for Mirco’s replacement, Atos, purchased with a $7,000 donation from Syar Industries of Vallejo.

Sgt. Bidou also is credited with obtaining $12,000 to purchase Bak, the department’s other K-9 officer, as well as needed equipment and supplies for the K-9 program and donations that were used to buy bulletproof vests for the animals.

Williams is in charge of the department’s evidence. Last October, she was called to process a home burglary site. While examining the home, she saw a footprint she recognized as being from a Polo brand shoe, Bidou wrote.

As she left the site, she noticed a neighbor standing nearby was wearing the same brand shoe.

She asked the man to show her his shoe sole, and she told officers at the scene that she had identified it as matching the print she had found.

Detectives pursued the investigation, which led to the recovery of the victims’ property and the arrest of the man, who later entered a guilty plea to a residential burglary charge, Bidou wrote.

“Without Laura’s efforts, this case may not have been solved in a timely manner,” he wrote, saying the suspect otherwise might have had time to dispose of the stolen goods.

He praised her “thorough attention to detail and her astute observation,” saying it had led to the quick resolution of the case.

• Corporal Mark Menesini and Officer Jenna Cameron received the 2013 Life-Saving Medals.

Menesini’s award came for his handling, along with Cameron, of a suicidal man found last October on the pedestrian path of the southbound side of the Benicia-Martinez bridge.

The man had sent his mother a text message indicating that he would commit suicide by jumping from the bridge, and as Menesini approached on foot the man climbed over the low railing to stand on a small platform on the outer portion of the bridge, Bidou wrote.

Cameron, a trained negotiator on the department’s hostage negotiations team, also was sent to the scene. The two spent about 30 minutes talking to the man, and convinced him not to take his life, the chief wrote.

Instead, the man surrendered after climbing back over the railing. He was taken into protective custody.

Cameron’s medal was for an April 2013 incident that began with the Benicia-Vallejo Police Emergency Services Unit joint training day at Mare Island.

After training, the team was called to an actual incident in Vallejo during which a man had climbed over the Interstate 80 overpass at Georgia Street and was seen sitting on the ledge.

The man threatened to jump, Bidou wrote, but in this case, the man claimed to have a weapon and appeared to be acting irrationally and under the influence of a stimulant.

Members of both the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and Hostage Negotiator (HNT) teams responded, and Cameron, then the newest hostage negotiator, took the lead.

Though the man said he would jump if officers came near him, Cameron convinced him to comply peacefully, Bidou wrote.

SWAT team members used a fire ladder truck to remove the man from the overpass, and Vallejo police Lt. Jim O’Connell said he had no doubt the man was going to jump. He said Cameron was the reason the man surrendered instead.

• Detective Aldo Serrano is Bidou’s choice for the 2013 Community Policing Medal.

Last year, Serrano conducted two senior fraud workshops for Benicia service groups, Bidou wrote.

While a member of the department’s patrol in 2012, Serrano handled several calls in which older Benicia residents had become fraud victims.

“He saw the need to educate our senior citizen population in order to protect them from becoming victims,” Bidou wrote.

Serrano researched the subject and developed a presentation designed to reduce the number of older victims of fraud, which Bidou said is a growing crime.

• Among the department promotions in 2013, Sarah Schooley and Sylvester became Public Safety Dispatch leads. and Edward Criado was promoted to corporal.

• Officer Pat Tracey retired in November 2013, and the department hired Officer Armondo Sanchez, dispatchers Amanda Donohue and Danielle Nelson, per diem dispatchers Lisa Krimsky and Stephanie Barreto and office assistant Cathy Shea.