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Ex-Marine is on the job as police chief


Immigration among issues in Escondido
By Kristina Davis
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 24, 2006

ESCONDIDO – Jim Maher never would have guessed, back when he was a rookie police officer, that one day he would get the corner office.

Now the expansive city view, the wood-paneled walls, overstuffed brown sofas and plush orange carpeting are his.

Then there's the shiny new nameplate on his desk: Chief Jim Maher.
But along with the new title and $150,000 salary come new headaches, which include addressing the hot-button topic of immigration in a community that is growing more and more polarized over the issue.

“Immigration is clearly the No. 1 domestic issue, and Escondido is not unaffected,” said Maher, 50, who has been on the job for a month.

A former Marine and 26-year veteran of the Escondido Police Department, Maher replaces retired Chief Duane White, who headed the department for the past nine years.

Maher is married with three grown children and two grandchildren and lives in Riverside County.

He oversees a department of 260 employees, including 170 sworn police officers, and manages a $36 million annual budget.

His bosses at City Hall voted this week to draft a law that would penalize landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, an ordinance that, if passed, could play out in a variety of ways.

Maher says it is still too early to tell if the Police Department would be responsible for enforcing the law if passed, or if it would be a city code violation.

In the meantime, he says it is a delicate balance that police have to strike when it comes to the illegal immigration debate.

On the one hand, he believes the general role of immigration enforcement still clearly belongs to federal authorities, a sentiment shared by most other police chiefs in San Diego County.

“We need to continue to have a relationship with everyone, including undocumented aliens,” he said. “It's important that if they are victimized, they turn to us. They don't have to fear us when they are the victim of a crime.”

On the other hand, he says one of his biggest priorities is to aggressively go after illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes.

The Police Department has recently launched a renewed effort to team with agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol so illegal immigrants committing felonies are more likely to be deported.

“Absolutely we go after those folks, and we are stepping it up,” Maher said.

The Mission Park neighborhood, which spreads out from Mission Avenue and Fig Street, is one area that has been targeted in an effort to reduce crime, Maher said.

The predominantly Latino neighborhood has been plagued with street robberies, gang activity, car thefts and violent crimes.

Overall crime in the city decreased by 11 percent last year, and amain goal of Maher's is to reduce it by another 11 percent this year.

To accomplish that, he will continue to rely on weekly crime statistics that help officers pinpoint problem areas.

Also, the department's gang unit was recently tripled in size to combat the gangsters who Maher says are responsible for a significant amount of the city's crime.

His vision of getting officers out on the street more instead of bogging them down with paperwork and file-keeping might also help.

He hopes to hire more part-time or full-time civilian employees or retired officers who can help detectives and officers with much of the clerical work they often perform.

“If an officer at the line level is not arresting people and doing something that he doesn't need to be carrying a firearm for, then (someone) else should be doing that job,” Maher said.

The new chief also said he does not plan to make any sweeping changes in the department, at least not for a while.

“My first priority is to let everyone get accustomed to the change,” Maher said. “There's always anxiety when there's change, especially at this level.”

Officer Paul Woodward, president of the Escondido Police Association, said Maher is a leader with an open-door policy and not one to make big moves on the fly.

“He takes things into consideration and likes input before making decisions,” Woodward said.

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Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com