Questions raised about public safety in Coachella

Nellie Delatorre’s 20-year-old grandson, Anthony Delatorre, was gunned down in Coachella in March.

“It’s hard for me to cope with things, it really hurts you when you find out your child was murdered,” Delatorre said.

She says ever since she’s been fighting for safer streets.

“They were going to try to get the money to hire at least one more detective or policeman but they haven’t done anything,” she said.

Delatorre feels city officials broke a promise by making it sound like they were hiring an additional deputy. It turns out, the city was just transferring funds for one deputy’s salary from the Indian Gaming settlement which expired last year, to the city’s general fund. That means the number of officers stays the same.

In a statement, Lt Misty Reynolds of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said:

“The Coachella police department currently employs 32 police officers with a ratio of .73 per thousand residents. ideally, i would like to see us closer to a one per thousand ratio, but understand that due to funding restrictions, that is not an option at this time. Violent crime is our top priority in the City of Coachella since we saw a 40% increase in violent crime from 2013 to 2014. We are actively working to decrease violent crime and increase community trust.”

“They’re telling us they’re going to get murals, open a library but what’s more important the safety of the children and families or spending the money on something else?” said Delatorre.

We asked the city what it thinks about these public safety concerns and whether there were enough law enforcement officers on the streets.

“In Coachella? I think we can work on bringing more but we have to think about resources,” said Mayor Steven Hernandez.

Hernandez says part of the problem is the cost of contracting with the sheriff’s department keeps going up.

“From 2010 to 2015 we’ve seen an increase of the rates of service for the sheriff’s department so for us as a city that has a $17 million general fund, it’s hard to keep up with that rate growth,” he said.

Delatorre says she’s not convinced about the lack of funds, especially after she voted for the passing of Measure U which promised to add funding for fire and police services.

“They’re taking all these taxes and what are they doing with it? They have people who can help us but instead they make excuses for everything they do,” Delatorre said.