Watsonville crime rates at lowest in a decade

A Central Coast city seeing a dramatic drop in crime rates.

City leaders are now calling Watsonville one of the safest communities in Santa Cruz County.

The city of Watsonville saw more than an 11 percent drop in the overall crime rates in 2016.

They did not have a single homicide and robberies were reduced by more than 55 percent.

The Watsonville police chief says they’ve worked hard for the past five years to get these numbers and don’t plan on stopping.

“It’s a community effort, a collaboration with not only police but also with our non-profits, our faith based organizations and our county partners,” said Chief David Honda.

Collaborations that have helped bring Watsonville its lowest crime rates in more than a decade.

Police chief David Honda says they depend on their partnership with the organizations as they help the department address issues like mental health.

“If we can go out and proactively address these issues before they become a crisis, that significantly lowers our need to respond to 911 calls and have to use force that might result in injury or death,” said Chief Honda.

The chief says funding from Measure G, which gave the department a half cent sales tax, has also allowed them to invest in their officers.

“It provides better training for our officers, training that has kind of gone to the wayside because of budget issues in the past,” Honda says. “Now we’ve been able to update our officers with continued professional training.”

Virginia Gallardo manages Second Street Cafe near Watsonville’s Main Street.

She says that in their years in business, she hasn’t needed the police for much.

Still, she says they’ve kept a constant eye on their safety.

“They’re in here and they come and they check on us,” Gallardo says. “They go by a lot of the businesses that are here because they do frequent Subway [across the street] and frequent here but we do feel like we are pretty safe.”

Though crime rates are at a new low, Chief Honda says his department won’t take it for granted.

“If you become complacent, a lot of that can just go and the crime rate will start going up,” Chief Honda said.

The chief says he plans to use Measure G funds to bring in new equipment and hire more officers.

They’re also in the beginning stages of creating a new specialized unit to address issues that could affect crime rates.