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Taft police report 1,180 incidents in March; chief outlines retraining tied to Prop 36 enforcement
Summary
Police Chief McMahon reported March activity, gave arrest and traffic-stop figures, and said the department will retrain officers to identify substance use as part of implementing ballot-measure-related procedures discussed with the district attorney.
Police Chief McMahon told the City of Taft council that the department recorded 1,180 total incidents in March and outlined planned retraining tied to recent changes in state ballot measures and local enforcement practices.
McMahon reported the March statistics on the record: 1,180 total incidents, 369 calls for service, and 701 officer-initiated incidents. He said officers made a total of 88 vehicle stops, 43 of which were traffic stops, and reported 71 total arrests for the month — 51 misdemeanors and 20 felonies.
The chief said he attended a meeting with Kern County officials including District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer about implementation steps related to Proposition 36. McMahon said a retired investigator from the DA’s office, Randall Meyer, is assisting the department’s training effort. “We’re actually retraining our younger cops in that area and giving them a lot of direction,” he said, describing spotting behavioral signs tied to substance use as a skill that had become less common following earlier ballot measures.
McMahon connected the retraining to enforcement and to goals of reducing repeat offenses: he said the department will use training to help identify suspects who may be repeat offenders and to cooperate with the DA’s office on channels that could lead to custody and treatment.
In remarks that illustrated the human impact of enforcement and intervention, McMahon recounted arresting an individual years ago who later contacted him to say the arrest and a conversation the chief had with him at the time helped the person change his life and join a union as an electrician.
Council members and the chief framed the effort as a combination of enforcement and rehabilitation: training for officers was described as a means both to better identify criminal behavior and to connect people in need to services and, when applicable, to court-supervised treatment pathways discussed with the district attorney.
