Calimesa reports rise in emergency calls; sheriff operation leads to arrests for drug offenses and illegal camping

Riverside County Sheriff’s Captain Northrop provided the council with a January public safety report that included overall crime counts and the results of a high‑visibility quality‑of‑life operation in the city.

Captain Northrop said the city recorded one robbery, four assaults and two burglaries in January. He described a January 29 operation by the Cabezón station, the crime suppression unit and Calimesa deputies that resulted in seven traffic stops, multiple vehicle-code citations, six citations issued, and five subjects contacted who were relocated from private property. Northrop said five arrests were made for drug-related offenses. He also told the council one person found camping behind Creekside Park after prior warnings was arrested and booked at the jail under the city’s new camping ordinance.

"It was it was great interaction," Northrop said of a recent Coffee with a Cop event. He added that the enforcement operation “played out pretty well” and that a minor booking‑system issue at the jail had been fixed.

Fire Chief O'Connell also briefed the council on department workload. He said the department closed last year with 2,080 calls, the highest call volume since it became a standalone department, and that last month the department ran 269 calls — a 49% increase from the previous month. The chief said about 64% of calls are medical aids and that response time to the east end of the city has climbed to an average of 6 minutes, 50 seconds from quarters.

Councilmembers asked whether the increase in runs included mutual aid responses to neighboring Yucaipa (automatic aid) and the chief said 41 mutual-aid runs to Yucaipa were included in the recent data; staff said they will perform a three-month smoothing analysis to better identify trends.

The public safety reports were provided as informational items; no new ordinances or council actions were taken during the presentation.