BY KRISTINA HACKER AND JOE CORTEZ
Turlock Journal
The Turlock Journal recently sat down with Turlock Police Chief Jason Hedden to talk about overall crime statistics throughout the city, new technology, staffing, recruitment, the use of social media, and more. Below is an excerpt of the interview.
TJ: So, generally, what is the status of crime in Turlock?
Hedden: Overall, crime is down in Turlock. We’re down from ’24 to ’25. There’s no change in homicide. Rape is up … an increase of two rapes. Obviously, we don’t want rapes to increase, but that tells us that people are reporting. You don’t want them going unreported. But, overall, we’re down — knock on wood. I would attribute most of this to the investment in technology that we’ve done over the last four years. And we continue to build in that technology space with license-plate-reader cameras. At this point, we have almost every major intersection locked down with cameras so we can see who’s coming and going.
Draw your attention back to, I believe it was 2023 or it could have been 2024, when we had two homicides that, with the facts we had, they probably would have been unsolvable. One was a shooting; one was a stabbing. With what the victims and witnesses gave us in terms of vehicle descriptions and things like that, if we wouldn’t have had the license-plate readers, we probably wouldn’t have caught those people.
TJ: Recently, the police department put some statistics up on social media about the Street Crimes Unit. When did the department bring back the Street Crimes Unit and what results have you seen so far?
Hedden: I don't want to confuse you on the Street Crimes Unit coming back, because it was just a change of resources. While we didn't get new staff, it was a change in resources. We had a team that was called Special Investigations Unit – SIU – and the majority of their time, they would get drug tips on a house or something like that, and they would be sitting in the office, and they might write a warrant and pull camera (footage) and set up and watch the house or do surveillance and build up enough information to eventually get a search warrant on the house, and maybe they'd go in and find guns, drugs, whatever it was. And it would take that entire team of five people – four and a sergeant – to accomplish that. They were getting stuff and shutting down drug dealers and things like that, but my background was in the Street Crimes Unit space, and I saw it being very effective in stopping vehicles before they commit the crime, because they see them rolling around at night time, blacked out in the neighborhood, or whatever it may be, that causes them to look that way. And they're making these stops, and they're getting guns and drugs, and then they're rolling back. So, what I did was I took four personnel from that unit after they all timed-out. The first guy that timed-out of the unit, I stuck him in the county SIU, so he's working with Sheriff (Jeff) Dirkse's team. They're doing tremendous things in Turlock…But I have a working sergeant and three officers on the street crimes unit. So, that pairs the sergeant and officer in one car and the other two in another car, and they just go out and make stops, go to high crime areas and are looking for anything that looks suspicious. And that's how their stats are achieved.
TJ: In the past, there have been gang flare-ups in Turlock every couple of years. What’s the status of gang activity in Turlock right now?
Hedden: It could flare up here, like you've seen in the past, but I'm trying to throw everything at it to keep it from doing that. I don't want to get complacent. We've added the (Street Crimes Unit) team to be focused on that assignment this year. Some of the other things that we've done is we’ve added a fourth motorcycle officer. Traffic is one of the biggest complaints that I get, next to homeless. We did some alignment in the city where we just kind of broke it down to make response times a little better, adding a sixth beat, and with that, we added to our patrol staffing numbers. We're doing very well there. When I came on, our minimums were five officers … we're now staffed at seven officers on day shift, seven officers on swing shift and six officers on graveyard shift. With the three people that I have coming off training, we will be staffed at triple sevens and then have an additional officer to do something else with. So, that’s great, but it doesn't mean we can't lose an officer in the meantime to another agency or retirement.
TJ: Do you feel like your recruitment incentives are working?
Hedden: Yes, 100 percent. I think it's a combination. It's the recruitment incentives. It's the whole package. When you ask people why they came here, it's social media. This young generation of people gets its news through Instagram. So, when they see those videos — all which Public Affairs Analyst Dominique Sanchez was the brains behind. She does a phenomenal job with social media. … If you follow other departments, sometimes people will say in a comment, ‘oh, that's me,’ or ‘that's my bike’ or ‘that's me being arrested.’ And I encouraged her to say something playful, like, ‘Thanks for starring in our video,’ with a smile (emoji). And all those things get people going. We had one that we put out and it was these street racers. You know, sideshows (street takeovers where drivers gather and perform illegal stunts). They're doing donuts at an intersection; they're videotaping it and posting it to Instagram; and they're holding their little signs out the window describing their club or whatever. The next thing you see, we took their video and we edited it, and it shows them with us, towing their vehicle – and now police officers are holding their sign. And then they go back and post things like, ‘oh, man, you could have at least tagged us.’ So, it's just kind of a playful thing. At the end of the day, you don't want to lose that line of professionalism, but we're all people and can banter. … My biggest thing here was to improve morale and make the place somewhere that people are proud of and feel like they love coming to work and they feel supported by their administration. They are your biggest storytellers. They are the ones that are going out telling their friends that work for the sheriff's department, or their friends that want to go to the police academy. ‘Hey, give us a try; it’s a great place to work; I'm super happy.’
At one point, we were going down to police academies and we'd tell everybody there, ‘We're bringing human resources, we're bringing our interview panels, we're bringing our background investigator to the academy. Anybody that doesn't have a patch or a job and you're interested, we're coming to you. You don't have to take the day off.’ And we'd sit there, and we'd let them go through the interview. And if they passed the interview, just like they would do here in two or three days, we'd say, you pass the interview, go meet with our background investigator. So, you're getting all their information and horsepower[JC3] , and then now we're in the process in one day. So, we've taken that back here, and we're doing the same thing. As we run our panels here, and they do come to us from the outside, we're sending them directly into backgrounds. … and maybe we get somebody that's also applying at the sheriff's department or one of the neighboring agencies, a little quicker.
TJ: During a recent Denair Municipal Advisory Council meeting, Sheriff Dirkse was talking to that group and said that social media can be a great tool, as well as a great hindrance. What are your thoughts on social media as it relates to your work?
Hedden: Social media is a great tool to reach people and get information out there and get stories out there. The hindrance is that, oftentimes, we're trying to catch up against the bad information. When somebody puts out information on social media, you'll get these groups that call themselves a ‘news group’ and they don't have a care in the world about what they say. They hear something on the scanner, and as we're responding to call, it could seem like World War III is coming. But when you break it down, it wasn't that nuts. If you notice, I'm big on social media, but I was not always a big social media person. I went back to the FBI National Academy, and I took one of the classes on media and image management for law enforcement. And they recommended us getting a page. So, I built my pages there, and then I sort of got into it, and I became the public information officer, and I was doing that in Las Vegas. I was doing the social media stuff, and I kind of got into it, getting that information. But you'll see sometimes I go on and correct the record. People appreciate that. The power of social media and solving crimes is tremendous.
TJ: What is the status of homelessness in Turlock right now, as you see it?
Hedden: I think it's relatively the same. We've put out a lot of resources into it … I think the downtown business owners would tell you that it's improved. What we saw were some problems with homeless downtown. They built the day center, and then we were getting complaints about homeless in downtown still… We were getting those calls because we set up this perfect scenario where people who have drug addiction problems and things like that are in one hub. We were getting a lot of reports of drug dealers coming out there, and they'd give us vehicle descriptions. People were congregating in that area. … It was a resource that was there, but it didn't come without any problems.
And in terms of the downtown, we just set a standard of enforcement, and we're letting people know, ‘Hey, you can't have your stuff scattered all over.’ If somebody's downtown with their cart and it's neatly packed, that's OK, as long as it's not blocking public access. If it's immediately with you, we're not going to deal with that. Now, if it's a shopping cart full of stuff, we're going to deal with that because it trashes up the city. If it’s a stolen cart, borrowed cart, however you want to call it, they shouldn't have it, right? It should be at the business for its intended purpose. So, I can tell you that our residents, the downtown business owners, tell me it's an improvement from what we saw.
TJ: In 2023, the Turlock City Council approved a new ordinance that made it a misdemeanor, punishable by an administrative fine of $1,000 per incident and/or up to six months in jail, to be a mere spectator at a sideshow. Has the new law been helpful in preventing sideshows?
Hedden: Yes. When we came out with (the new law), and the social media and the press that we did on that, it virtually stopped. We'd see a couple meets, but not like the big, problematic meets we were seeing. Now, as time progressed, we'd see one that would start up, and then we would just hit it fast and hard. The sheriff's department would come in and assist us. We'd make stops, and that would kind of quiet it down for a little bit. And then, more recently… we're seeing some of that activity again.
TJ: Let’s talk about Christmas. Tis the season where cars get broken into and packages are stolen. What do you want to tell residents to be wary of during this time of year?
Hedden: Just be extra vigilant in your neighborhood. Look out for each other. Communicate with your neighbors. If you know you're going out of town and you're going to expect packages, talk to your trusted neighbors and let them know to pick up the packages for you, so they're not sitting out there for days on end. Delivery drivers, our message to them is, if they see vehicles following them or something suspicious, report that so that we can respond and make sure that somebody is not stealing packages. We're getting holiday mail now, and sometimes grandparents who live in Idaho are sending six grandkids $100 gift cards in the mail. Be vigilant about checking your mail daily so you're not letting it stack up in the mailbox overnight. The mail isn't delivered at night, it's delivered during the day. So, pick up your mail at the end of the day, because we're typically seeing mailbox thefts in the middle of the night. If the box is empty, they'll stop doing it.
Don't leave packages and purses in your car in plain sight. If you go somewhere, be mindful of people lurking around the parking lot, seeing where you're putting your packages. Keep that stuff out of view. Don't leave the purse in the car; take it with you. That's one of my biggest pet peeves. It's surprising what people will leave in the car. Right? A gun. Leave a gun in the car. It's in the center console when the car is locked, but people break in and go through your car and then somebody has a gun or your wallet or whatever. So, we will be deploying officers on bike patrol around our shopping areas. That is in our holiday plan. We will continue our retail theft operations, where we have officers in unmarked vehicles out in the parking lots watching to ensure that people aren't stealing from businesses.
And the other message is to designate a driver. Families are getting together. Everybody's having a few drinks. There's no excuse not to call an Uber or use a ride-share platform. We remind people to plan ahead. We make a significant investment in ensuring that people are safe while they're traveling through town. We will be looking for DUIs. We'll be very vigilant about that. … There’s nothing like Turlock. This is an awesome, unique place. Merry Christmas to everybody in our community.
