Coachella’s First Citizens On Patrol Will Soon Hit The Streets

Coachella will soon have three more people protecting its city. They are part of the first class of volunteers in the Citizens On Patrol program or COPS for short. They’ll work a minimum of 16 hours a month. They’ll be patrolling at night and assisting deputies at major crime scenes and traffic accidents.

Jesse Villarreal, a Coachella City Council member is one of the volunteers. Villarreal said, “I love serving my community, and this is a good service to our community.” The three volunteers have already gone through a 13 week training course at the Palm Springs Police Department. The day before Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff swears them in, they were working on advanced traffic control.

The volunteer Citizens on Patrol aren’t replacing deputies, Lt. Frank Taylor says, “In the future we’re going to sue them at traffic accidents and crime scenes, they won’t be involved but when they see something they’ll report it and we’ll send officers out.

The three aren’t replacing any officers but will be saving the City of Coachella money. Rather than calling in crews to watch barricades at the scene, the Citizens on Patrol will be there.