Six months in, Police Chief Paco Balderrama proves he’s a good fit for Fresno
Fresno’s new-ish police chief has been on the job for six months.
Meaning that according to Paco Balderrama’s own timeline, his tenure has 9 years and 6 months left to go.
“Ten years,” Balderrama replied to my direct question, asked over Starbucks coffee on a recent morning in downtown Fresno, about how long he envisions being the city’s top cop. “Honestly, I can see myself and my family being here for 10 years.”
Balderrama doesn’t have specific career plans for 2031. It was more his way of impressing upon me (and by extension, you) that he views Fresno as a destination rather than a stepping stone to someplace else. Ten years is a long time for anyone to hold the same job in law enforcement.
By contrast, six months is barely enough for Balderrama to confirm our initial impressions — or for him to get a true sense of all the duties, responsibilities and politics that come with being police chief in a city of nearly 550,000 residents. But there are early signs the fit is a good one.
Fresno is a strange and unique place, and Balderrama arrived at a strange and unique time. Like many cities, Fresno created a police reform commission in response to the nationwide protests touched off by the Minneapolis murder of George Floyd. Unlike many cities, voters here had just elected as their mayor a former police chief with a long, controversial history.
Clearly, those are some mixed public priorities. Let’s reform the Fresno Police Department. After choosing Jerry Dyer to run the entire city.
Into this picture steps Balderrama, who must not only negotiate a tricky landscape, but do so while Dyer continues to cast a considerable shadow over the department he used to be synonymous with and led for 18 years.
Balderrama supports many of the 70-plus recommendations made by the Fresno Commission for Police Reform and sounds eager to implement the ones he considers “low-hanging fruit.” Those include changes to how officers deal with mental health calls as well as modifications to the department’s use-of-force policy stipulating officers employ de-escalation techniques and use physical force only when no other option is available.
Defund the police? Not happening in Fresno
At the same time, Balderrama isn’t about to cave to those who want his department defunded. (Which was never going to happen.) Thanks to beefier-than-expected sales tax revenues as well as millions in federal stimulus dollars, he won’t have to. The $1.4 billion budget adopted last month by the Fresno City Council includes $204 million set aside for the Fresno PD, including $193 million from the city’s general fund.
While those figures represent a slight dip from the previous year, it’s enough to hire 12 more police officers (up to 850) as well as 10 new community service officers — civilians that can perform tasks such as taking reports following a home burglary or car break-in so sworn officers can respond to more urgent calls.
Balderrama’s goal is 950. Getting there will require both new positions as well as better accountability over the officers already under his command. During our talk, the chief was upfront about the department’s struggle with long-term absences and the heretofore lack of control over workers’ compensation claims. In response, he created an internal investigative unit. Since doing so, the number of officers out on long-term leave dropped from more than 100 to 80.
“My officers that are working the streets every night are tired of doing it with skeleton crews,” Balderrama said during the recent budget hearings. “If I could wave a magic wand and bring these 80 people back tomorrow, we’d be in a lot better position right now.”
Decisive action on cop with Proud Boys ties
Citing public trust and accountability, Balderrama did not waste time ridding the department of an officer with Proud Boys ties who joined a protest in the Tower District. (Which was a really dumb thing for a local cop to do.) And even though Fresno continues to experience a surge in crime, the arrests of a gang member for killing a 19-year-old Clovis woman in a car collision as well as a suspected hit-and-run driver who ran down a 10-year-old Fresno boy on Friant Road helped put the community at ease.
Balderrama drew criticism from certain corners (ahem) for the department’s soft treatment of anti-mask activist Ben Martin, the ringleader behind multiple illegal protests at Fresno supermarkets during the height of the pandemic last winter.
After Balderrama and Martin had an in-person chat, Martin gushed to his social media followers that he and the chief “ended up making some real headway” and that he is “excited to partner with the police department.”
Which didn’t exactly sound like the words of someone the slightest bit deterred.
“He’s playing you like a fool, Chief Balderrama,” I wrote in conclusion Jan. 28.
Well, here we are in July, and Martin and his merry band of protesters haven’t disrupted the shopping experience of any Fresnan since. Perhaps the chief’s talk penetrated that hirsute skull after all.
“Who played who in that situation?” Balderrama said with a grin after we discussed the matter.
Touché, chief.
This story was originally published July 8, 2021 at 10:52 AM.
