Department of innovation: Redondo police embrace cutting-edge law enforcement technology
Redondo Beach Police Officer John Bruce and Police Chief Keith Kauffman stand beside the department’s new adventure bike, which sprung from an idea made in passing. Photo
Redondo Beach Police Officer John Bruce and Police Chief Keith Kauffman stand beside the department’s new adventure bike, which sprung from an idea made in passing. Photo
Part one in a series
It was May 2016, the opening day of National Police Week in Washington D.C. The Police Unity Ride was rolling its way toward the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. On the sidelines, taking inventory of the bikes were Redondo Beach Police Chief Keith Kauffman and RBPD Sgt. John Bruce.
Most of the bikes were Harley-Davidsons, some were Hondas, some were BMWs. All of them were huge, 800 lbs. bikes built for cross-country touring. The same platform for bulky bikes that Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox rode in “CHiPs” was still in use nearly 40 years after the cop drama hit TVs.
Bruce thought aloud: Wouldn’t it be great if we had a fully-kitted, dual-sport adventure bike, and we came riding through this thing?
Kauffman thought for a second. “That’s a great idea; it’d shock the country.”
That was as good as an order for Bruce.
One year later, RBPD’s two, custom-built Honda Africa-Twin motorcycles became the talk of the Long Beach’s International Motorcycle Show. The bikes were outfitted by renowned customizer Roland Sands and donated by Honda through the Redondo Beach Police Foundation. Modifications included plate-armored saddlebags, a locking gun mount, a windshield camera, and a quick-release bulletproof blanket to turn the bike into instant cover in an emergency.
“Projects like this – something that would change the culture of law enforcement – don’t usually kick from the bottom up,” said Capt. Jon Naylor. “In other agencies, top-level people are coming up with the ideas and forcing them down. Here, we’re having line-level personnel come up with ideas that drive our vision.”
In the late 1990s, the Redondo Beach Police Department was nationally recognized as an innovative law enforcement agency, quick to embrace new ideas and new technologies.
Then, a rash of issues, from a falling economy to eroded trust in department brass, caused the department to stagnate and lose its luster.
When Kauffman came aboard in 2015, he brought with him a lofty goal: Within 10 years, RBPD would become the most innovative police department in the country. His aspirations were summed up in the department’s new vision statement: “We are the community – leading the way in law enforcement.”
The community oriented policing model used by Redondo in the 1990s and again today calls for proactive policing rather than waiting for incidents to break out. But it wasn’t always that way.
In the early 1970s, Artesia Boulevard’s Redondo Court Motel had become an 11 room den for burglars, drug addicts and prostitutes who spread crime throughout nearby neighborhoods. For decades, RBPD took a spot-cleaning approach to The Court, to little effect; arresting one drug dealer would lead to another in their place. One count of police calls in the early 1990s showed 85 incidents at the hotel over a six-month period.
Mel Nichols was hired as Redondo’s police chief in 1993, and immediately made The Court a priority. Within a year, RBPD had made dozens of motel arrests of career criminals. The motel was demolished in December 1994, after inspections revealed 46 building code violations.
Under Nichols, who served until 2001, the Redondo Beach Police Department became a jewel among law enforcement agencies. In 1996, the City won an injunction against members of North Side Redondo. The violent gang, embroiled in a turf war with rivals from Lawndale, was pushed out of Perry Park, leading to a 90 percent reduction in neighborhood crime. Then-presidential candidate Bob Dole made a campaign stop in Perry Park to celebrate the injunction. Two years later, an undercover sting called “Operation Bull Market” recovered $4.3 million in stolen property and made 80 arrests, leading to more than 500 felony charges. Then-Governor Pete Wilson named the project among the most successful operations in state history.
From 1997 to 2004, RBPD led the City of Redondo Beach to four Helen Putnam Awards, the most prestigious honor given to California cities for public works.
However, the shine slowly fell off of the Department in the 2000s, and it began to stagnate. According to a 2015 report by retired RBPD officers John Skipper and Phil Keenan, based on more than 100 interviews, three causes were identified for the decline: Personnel reductions caused by economic downturn; a shrinking, dysfunctional command staff; and a sour relationship among department brass that permeated through the rest of the force.
Skipper and Keenan’s report was assigned by then-Interim Chief John Neu to create a blueprint for the next Chief. The report cites Nichols’s trust in his officers as a key to the department’s success under his leadership.
“You have to have confidence in your people and empower them,” Nichols said.
The report was submitted to the City Council on Oct. 20, 2015, the same day that Kauffman was sworn in as Police Chief. Kauffman had worked his way up through the Hawthorne Police Department, earning two South Bay Medal of Valor Awards and national recognition for co-creating the Coffee With A Cop program. He had local cred as well, as the son of retired RBPD officer Ken Kauffman, Redondo’s first K9 handler.
“A lot of that assessment dealt with a lag of progression, and that was a big deal to me,” Kauffman said. “That’s the part of police work I felt our industry had been lacking, playing catch-up instead of looking for ways to solve problems before they start.”
But change couldn’t occur without buy-in from the department. That came when Kauffman promoted career-long RBPD officers Joe Hoffman and Jon Naylor to captains. Hoffman championed Redondo’s successful “bait bike” program, which Naylor also worked on. The program baited criminals with premium bikes, fitted with GPS trackers. The first time the department deployed the bikes, they led to three arrests and more than five years jail time for two career criminals.
“Leading the way in law enforcement [means] constantly thinking of innovative and efficient means of conducting law enforcement,” Naylor said. “Doing things that other departments aren’t and finding ways to do what we’re doing much better.”
Redondo’s aerial drone program wasn’t the first by a law enforcement agency. But rather than purchasing drones from a vendor, the department contracted with Flying Lion, owned by longtime RBPD volunteer Reserve Officer Barry Brennan.
Brennan started the company to fill a gap in law enforcement. For decades, aerial coverage was provided by helicopters, which could be prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
“A helicopter is good for about 45 minutes,” said RBPD Reserve Commander Mike Stark. “Barry can put a drone up, and [with battery charges and drone swapping] he can be up for 24 hours.”
Redondo’s maiden drone flight came on Jan. 11, 2016, during the Westboro Baptist Church protest in front of Redondo Union High School. A drone used by LA County Sheriff’s Officers ran into technical problems, and Brennan’s squad took over. Since then, his fleet of certified drone pilots has been available to RBPD for field work. Flying Lion has a one-year, $74,280 contract with the City, awarded in April. Brennan’s company has leased multiple drones to the department, and trained 10 RBPD officers to become drone certified, should the department need immediate aerial support before Brennan’s team can arrive.
The drone’s most publicized use was on March 1, when it was used to help end a stand-off, following a region-wide car chase. The drone program has also been used for overwatch during events such as the Super Bowl 10K Run, tracking burglars breaking into cars at the South Bay Galleria, and catching suspects attempting to evade police.
Two weeks ago, on Dec. 1, three auto-theft suspects were hiding in a neighborhood after being cornered in North Redondo. Police set up a containment, blocking off streets, but were having no luck, and were about to be called off. Then Brennan’s drones, equipped with heat-sensing infrared technology, detected heat at a nearby construction lot.
“There’s something going on with that bathroom,” Brennan told the officers. “It’s too hot.”
Officers opened the door to a portable toilet and found three men, crammed into the stall, staring back at them.
“It was all based on the heat source,” Kauffman said. “Search teams were done, and who knows what would’ve happened, They’d have probably just taken off, but those are bad guys. It’s hard to put a price on that.”
The drone program has limitations. They can operate in a sweet spot, around 1,200 feet away from a mobile command center, and max out about 2,600 feet away. But, according to Brennan, signal interference from overhead power lines and wi-fi networks generally limit their range to around 800 feet.
On Nov. 30, one day before the construction site search, officers were attempting to take pictures of RBPD’s new police boat. The boat, a retired Coast Guard vessel, was purchased so RBPD could take over harbor-area enforcement from Redondo Beach Fire’s Harbor Patrol, in accordance with a recent California Supreme Court decision. But the $1,000 drone glitched, and fell into the waters of King Harbor, a complete loss.
According to Brennan, the crash was caused by technical failure, rather than pilot error, so his company will absorb the replacement cost.
In other organizations, Kauffman said, the officer piloting the drone might be chewed out for the crash.
“But the reason he was flying was because he’s one of the people who has accepted and embraced the technology the most, pushing it furthest forward; he stepped up,” Kauffman said. “He’s one of our most proficient, so if I crush that guy, then I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth.”
Kauffman’s department has created room for ideas to fail.
“One of the hardest things to do is to convince everyone that if they take a risk and it goes wrong, we won’t bite their heads off. If they did something with bad intent, something unsafe, putting a life in jeopardy, or aren’t fiscally responsible, we have a reason to,” Kauffman said. “But if someone is acting within the vision and the idea flops, we don’t want to discourage that.”
That vision has led to increased staffing numbers – the department is hovering around 100 sworn officers again for the first time in years, and its social media presence has attracted attention from community members and potential hires.
“Instagram is how we’re recruiting,” Kauffman said. “There’s not a person I’ve hired who doesn’t talk about that.”
The City’s Public Safety Open House is another marketing method, demonstrating new technology and programs ranging from explosive-detecting dogs to SWAT team tactics.
Like the Coffee With A Cop program, the Open House is designed make residents more comfortable calling when problems arise, such as code enforcement issues, and in approaching the department with partnership ideas, such as the Beach Cities Cycling Club’ safety programs.
“Everyone in the city has been very supportive of public safety…it seems like everyone has been on the same page,” Kauffman said. We hear from the public and they’re happy with what’s been in place. I just don’t think we should sit back and wait to react to things.”
Next: A bicycle diversion pilot program readied to roll. Redondo schools prepared for emergencies. RBPD bolsters the city attorney’s office.