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Capitola's Chief Rick Ehle Retires, Part 3
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Capitola's Chief Rick Ehle Retires, Part 3
Inside California's $14 Billion Dollar Prison Problem
By Mary Bryant
It was the mid-'90s in Oakland, before soon-to-be Mayor Jerry Brown took office, and a time of much change for one of California's most challenged cities, according to Rick Ehle.
Ehle had advanced quickly through the ranks to captain. But he and other senior officers seemed stuck under a glass ceiling with a new chief in charge. Ehle had coordinated the roll-out of the city's expansive community policing program, which had been heralded for dramatic reductions in crime. But that department was being reorganized.
"The big unit I developed was being disassembled and the pieces being relocated to area commands. While that was the design, the new challenges weren't that challenging," Ehle said.
Ehle had also pioneered new approaches to investigating and maintaining integrity among Oakland's rank and file, as the head of the department's internal affairs division.
The department received 400-500 complaints a year, and he said his time and training in internal affairs was essential.
"It's an integral part of going through the ranks.
[Police officers] are generally held to a higher standard in society due to their authority and responsibilities," Ehle said.
When Ehle was first promoted in 1988 to internal affairs, his boss, then Chief George Hart, told him to "let the chips fall where they fell and treat every case based on its own merits." And there were some problems on the force mostly "booze, broads and financial problems." In one case, Ehle determined a few of Oakland's not-so-finest officers were responsible for strong-arm robberies at illegal gaming parlors.
What was his biggest case? One of Ehle's friends from his days in patrol murdered his wife in a fit of rage. While the officer had been involved in an accident in which he suffered brain trauma, the case was clear cut and the officer "is still in jail."
Ehle had thought internal affairs would be just a stop for a year or so, but after five years on the job and with the department's future cloudy, he found that his experience policing sworn police officers was really going to be put to the test.
California's Problem with Prisons
In his spare time, Ehle had been teaching and consulting for the Department of Justice. He was also involved in special projects for the offices of the Oakland mayor and city manager. With the higher profile assignments, Ehle gained confidence.
He had met the likes of Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton when he attended the FBI National Academy. A colleague suggested he apply for a new division being formed in the California Prison system. The governor was recruiting nationally for the position, and Ehle was encouraged to give the job a go. He was eventually selected.
"I wasn't ready for the political aspect, but learned quickly," he added.
Ehle started in 1997.
Initially Ehle was provided a staff of 43 people to investigate and review an exploding number of cases from individual complaints to riots in some of the world's toughest prisons. The staff quickly grew to 140 employees and the division's name was changed to Office of Investigative Services.
Essentially, the OIS was tasked with independent review, under the watchful eye of a federal court system that believed California's prison overcrowding and internal violence was so grievous that the court considered incarcerating adults in the state amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Conceptually, OIS investigated the big cases. But the reality of federal court scrutiny meant most cases were big cases.
"We also reviewed the investigations coming out of the prisons," Ehle said.
Besides individual complaints, there were also allegations of "gladiator days" in which prisoners from rival gangs would be pitted in violent contests by guards at Corcoran Prison, along with the penitentiary that got the feds into California, Pelican Bay.
Ehle knew his job was going to be difficult.
"I thought process would win out.
As long as you have staff buy in
then we can make the types of changes we needed to make," he said.
And it wasn't just the prison guard union that made his job trying.
"[The inmates], all they have is
time on their hands," Ehle added.
Time, and a code of warfare from gang leaders that made little sense.
"It is really a broken system. I don't think the courts or public understand," he said.
While guards were accused of using deadly force to quell riots, the gangs were also seen baiting the guards.
In September 1999 at Pelican Bay, to calm a riot guards used live rounds, shooting over the heads of inmates in the prison yard. Despite the orders and whizzing bullets, the video showed prisoners attempting to get up. Why? They were being told to get up by their gang's "shot caller," inmates that would remain prone but order others to challenge the guards.
Why would any inmate risk his life?
"If they don't do what they are told during one of these battles
they are going to be [killed by their gangs].
If you don't do what you are told, you definitely won't survive," Ehle said.
Fixin' What's Broke...
Part of the problem in investigations was that staff wouldn't testify.
"The frustrating part is that we had a difficult time getting staff to cooperate," Ehle said, which resulted in new laws and court precedents.
"That was a long, hard-fought process."
With a budget of nearly $10 billion that consumes about 10 percent of the state's expenditures, prison overcrowding is not only a financial problem but a legal one. The federal court has ordered the state to reduce prison population by 40,000, and more over two years. Currently state prisons are at about twice of their designed population with about 150,000 inmates.
While Ehle doesn't support an outright release of prisoners, he doesn't believe problems can be fixed while the prisons are so overcrowded.
"They need to reduce population. They just can't program [the prisoners] effectively," he added.
"They can't continue this vicious cycle.
They have to build an evaluation tool to let people out."
Will the state's current administration meet the federal court's requirements?
"I don't know there is the political will to make it happen.
I don't know if there are the economies of scale to get
the prisons more manageable," he said.
What is the answer?
"The short-term answer is come up with another $4 billion to $5 billion to house them.
They will kill each other or get killed or hurt innocent members of society [if gang members are released]," Ehle believes. "Gangs and criminal enterprise are out of control."
What is the long-term answer?
"The experts tell us there is not a lot we can do [once a child moves into his teens and joins a gang]," Ehle said. "The gangs replace what is missing in many of their lives."
While Ehle said the first step is to find the money to fix the prison problems, the longer term will mean state agencies coordinating and cooperating in ways that will be new but necessary to intervene in the lives of children before gang pressures result in the loss of more lives. If not, he said reports project the state's prison population will continue to grow to unbearable proportions.
For Ehle, at year four, the job traveling around the state and across the nation had gotten too big and as the previous administration and support changed he considered leaving.
He had thought of looking for a job as a chief of police prior to corrections, and decided to consider a small community police force, which he could "get his arms around."
He found Capitola in 2001.
Capitola and the Future
Ehle said that at Capitola's small department he found chaos, but at a much smaller scale.
"The public was suffering as well as the continuity of programming and service [we deliver].
Most of the leadership had left.
The [officers] wanted to see change but did not know how to bring it about," Ehle recalled.
The transition wasn't easy.
"I had to lose people.
They doubted me," Ehle said of his first two years. "In my case, I didn't give up. I prevailed."
However, Ehle wasn't through the tough part. Capitola's city council had moved money from police services to pay more administrative salaries, beefing up the city's planning, redevelopment, accounting and city manager's staff.
Once one of the highest-paid forces in the county, Capitola's officers dropped to some of the lowest. That damaged morale and the ranks dropped to a point where Ehle worried.
In the late '90s, the department had 25 sworn officers. At the low point, there were 16 sworn officers on the street and more were threatening to leave.
"Once the salary and fringe benefits become an issue
people start focusing on that instead of what is important," he said, "If you are asking [the officers] to work harder and you are not going to recognize them for their worth, [you are going to have problems]."
Ehle prevailed with modest increases.
"I had to talk like a Dutch uncle to the city manager and the council," Ehle said. "These guys work hard and they should be compensated. We looked at other cost saving initiatives such as reducing worker's compensation claims and contract services to get officer's salaries [more] competitive with other agencies."
While very violent crime is still reasonably rare in Capitola, his department makes more arrests per capita than any other jurisdiction in Northern California.
He said the city can't let down its guard.
"We still need to make progress.
We are just lucky we don't have the running gun battles," he said. "We have gang fights at the mall and [we had] a gang-related stabbing at Margaritaville during the Art and Wine Festival."
With a new federally funded position, Ehle said the department will have 23 officers, but the council should consider taking report recommendations to push the total to 25 officers without losing any community police.
Additionally, the chief believes it's essential to fill the frozen captain's position.
This year, Ehle has saved the city money by working under contract and recently retired Captain Brian Martin filled in, also on contract. Ehle will be gone soon, and except for former Captain Mike Card returning in January as the new chief, there is much work to be done on developing and promoting the future leadership of the department.
However, Ehle is also quick to say he has a department filled with talent and there is much room to promote from within. And, he adds, for now morale is high.
As for Ehle, he will likely take a job as an interim police chief on occasion and plans on going into business with retired Santa Cruz City Police Chief Steve Belcher offering a "full spectrum of public safety management services."
Does Ehle have anything to add? Yes, he wants everybody to know he loves Capitola, will continue to live in the area and has a potential contract to help manage the Capitola Public Safety & Community Service Foundation next year.
"This has been a dream come true," he said. "There were plenty of other jobs out there.
But from my perspective this was the best place for my wife and me to be at this time in our lives."
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