The City of Temecula Sheriff’s Department has formed a new law enforcement team, “CORE,” which stands for Community, Outreach, Resource, and Engagement. Its six-member team is comprised of a Sergeant, four Deputies, and a Community Service Officer. The CORE Team is dedicated to the City’s longstanding public safety priorities to provide a safe and high quality of life for its residents and businesses.
Mayor Zak Schwank states, “This team of individuals is stationed out of City Hall and collaborates daily with other Departments including Fire, Code Enforcement, Community Services, and the City Manager’s Office with the unique purpose of addressing Quality of Life issues.”
Captain Durham states, “The CORE Team starts and ends their day at Temecula City Hall placing emphasis on proactive patrols that investigate and deter crime with a goal to preserving the City’s safe and beautiful neighborhoods and business districts. This includes working with Code Enforcement to investigate graffiti or vandalism, meeting with the City Manager’s Office to resolve neighborhood concerns and establishing relationships with residents and businesses in Temecula.” The CORE team has a variety of assignments specific to protecting quality of life concerns. Some examples include the following:
- Conduct proactive patrol and directed enforcement to address the quality-of-life issues in Temecula, including illegal vending, massage parlor compliance, and panhandling.
- Establish working relationships with business owners in Temecula.
- Address various crimes and municipal code violations and educate employees working at businesses on the laws.
- Work collaboratively with Code Enforcement and the Fire Department to address various crimes and municipal code violations.
- Investigate and resolve specific problems throughout the City of Temecula. This includes zero tolerance for vandalism or graffiti in City parks.
- Conduct various types of operations and criminal investigations to address concerns in the community.
- Conduct VICE related operations and investigations to deter Human Trafficking.
- Work to establish residential crime-free communities.
- Conduct operations to immediately address/deter any gang activity in the City of Temecula.
- Complete the preparation and execution of search warrants.
- Work with the city Homeless Outreach Team to manage issues related to the homeless and transient community.
- Provide a safety plan for all public events (such as parades) as well as for City facilities.
- Coordinate operations supporting charity work and outreach to less fortunate members of the community (such as the Shop with a Cop event).
Captain Durham states, “As the City of Temecula evolves, our plan is to incorporate policing strategies that may include specialized community policing teams like CORE to ensure the City of Temecula remains among the safest cities in the Nation.”