YORBA LINDA – Frames and pictures are scattered on the floor of Lt. Bob Wren’s small office. There’s been no time to decorate since the Orange County Sheriff’s Department rushed to take over police services in Yorba Linda five months earlier than expected.
The only things that adorn the walls of the office of this city’s new chief of police services are poster-size to-do lists he has been chipping away at this week.
On Monday morning, 458 emails waited for him. “How did that happen? I had them all cleaned up a week ago,” he said.
But for the 26-year veteran of the department and longtime resident of the city, diving into the police work for the city’s 65,000 residents is a welcome challenge.
For the last six months, Wren has had a front seat for a political tug-of-war after the city decided to end a 42-year-old relationship with Brea Police and contract police services with the Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff’s officials watched as the City Council considered reneging on the contract, but, instead, they were asked to take over services almost immediately. Even before deputies began officially patrolling Yorba Linda on Saturday, Wren and others in the department were ironing out the final wrinkles in setting up Yorba Linda’s new police force.
“There’s so much work to do,” he said. “We need to be who we are: proactive, attentive and accessible.”
Besides working out the technical details of patrolling Yorba Linda’s 20 square miles – such as finding contacts for every school and giving deputies access codes to the gates of several communities – Wren already has set up goals for the deputies under his command. With a rash of burglaries that started during the holiday season, deputies have had to hit the ground running, he said.
35 home burglaries –
Since December, 35 home burglaries have been reported in Yorba Linda. Some of the burglaries are believed to have occurred in the daytime, and the phone lines to some homes were cut during burglaries.
Before taking over police services, deputies began responding to the calls with Brea officers, Wren said. Authorities are asking residents to watch for people they don’t recognize in their neighborhoods. The burglars are believed to have cased the neighborhoods beforehand.
Investigators don’t know if there’s a connection among the burglaries throughout the city. In some instances, burglaries occurred while families went out to dinner.
“They’re investigating this very aggressively,” Wren said. “People are just going to see a high presence of law enforcement around here.”
Speaking to the deputies under his command – many of whom are former Brea officers – Wren said he’s made it clear he wants them constantly in the community, out of their patrol cars and visible in neighborhoods.
That includes seeing deputies on campuses.
Presence at schools
Wren said he wants to work closely with area schools to devise emergency plans and training programs for an emergency. He’d like to have deputies be a frequent presence inside the schools so they can be approachable by staff and students.
“I want people to get used to deputies being on campus,” he said.
Though he wanted that cooperation before the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Wren said the tragic event has highlighted for him the need for law enforcement to build strong ties with local schools.
It’s especially important for him, he said, since he has been a resident of Yorba Linda since the 1970s. Other than his college years, the 50-year-old deputy has lived most of his life in Yorba Linda, playing Little League baseball in the city’s parks as a kid, and now raising a family.
Now he wants his deputies to get settled in their new city and their new headquarters along Yorba Linda Boulevard.
One year from now, Wren said, “I want us to have assimilated into the fabric of this community.”
That’s a work in progress.
The city and the Sheriff’s Department plan to add another 1,500 square feet to the station. In the meantime, deputies are using a large mobile command vehicle as their locker room. The cramped quarters are fine, Wren said. He doesn’t want deputies hanging around inside anyway. He wants them on the streets.
Despite the recent political strife, Wren said he will be fine if residents, teachers and students don’t remember the name of the lieutenant in charge of police services for the city, he said, as long as they remember the name of the deputy who patrols their neighborhood or school.
“What people in this community want is for a police officer or deputy sheriff to be there when they need them,” he said. “Period.”
Contact the writer: shernandez@ocregister.com or 949-454-7361
