Who Watches The Watchers?
In Which: Police surveillance is on the rise, Councilmembers push private businesses to clean themselves up, and Councilmember Bonilla unconcerned with cost of police recruitment.
Property Crime Down, Violent Crime Steady
The Council Public Safety Committee met on December 4th and included one of the regular updates from the Hayward Police Department (HPD). Covering September 1 to October 31, Police Chief Matthews summarized the reported crime statistics: property crime is down over 25% compared to last year. Though he was quick to point out that property crime increases during the holidays—primarily in the form of package theft.
Violent crime is up very slightly—about 5%—and “Crime Against Society” is also up, but it was never explained what that meant, so I won’t speculate about what that means.
The top 5 most reported crime types are vehicle theft, vandalism, simple assault, basic theft, and burglary. And while the Chief didn’t speculate about what may be causing the crime trends, it’s important to remember that Police merely respond to crime, they don’t prevent it. For example, arsons Downtown, even beyond those from unhoused residents trying to keep warm, has continued to be an issue despite arrests.
This shows that crime prevention often comes down to individual awareness—building neighborhood trust and avoiding dangerous situations—and incarceration doesn’t reduce crime.
School Calls
Though removing so-called School Resource Officers (SROs)—sworn officers who operate exclusively on school campuses—was celebrated as a win for student safety, it remains clear that schools continue to rely on HPD to resolve student problems. In the two months of September and October, 335 calls were made by schools—predominantly from High Schools, but many elementary schools, as well.
There was no data on why the calls were made and the data included calls made during non-school hours, as well. It was therefore unclear why over 120 calls were made by elementary schools where students range from age 4-12.
Vacancies
At the time of the presentation, there were 28 sworn officer vacancies and 20 professional staff vacancies. All told, 29% of sworn officers were unavailable due to a combination of vacancies, injuries, and being in the academy. About 20 sworn officers are in the pipeline and will be fully trained in the next year.
Council Thoughts
The Council Public Safety Committee is composed of 3 City Councilmembers: Councilmember Roche, Councilmember Bonilla, and Mayor Salinas.
Building Awareness
Councilmember Roche asked about Public Service Announcements for various crime trends, including “jugging” and Facebook marketplace scams. The Chief said that they could do that—they have full-time outreach person—but also said that they had information on the HPD website. Councilmember Roche pushed for active outreach efforts with links to the information.
Councilmember Bonilla agreed, suggesting adding the information to water bills. This is a common refrain from City Councilmembers since even tenants usually pay for their own water/sewer bills.
Private Responsibility
Councilmember Roche pushed for banks to do more for the security of their patrons— “jugging” is when someone is mugged after withdrawing money from an ATM or bank. Chief Matthews said that banks could do more, but also admitted that sometimes it happens at people’s homes after having been followed from the bank.
She was also concerned about arson, specifically repeat offenders. “We arrest people and they’re out again,” she said. She then mentioned Planned Parenthood, specifically, though provided no details beyond it being a problem area with arson. Chief Matthews said that most fires come from unhoused residents trying to keep warm. Only a few fires are actually started on purpose and they’re exploring restraining orders to make it easier to arrest repeat offenders.
Councilmember Roche was also concerned about vandalism, citing Broken Window Theory—an idea that low-level property crimes increase the likelihood of more serious crimes. This theory resulted in significant over-policing of Black and Brown people in the 1980s. Chief Matthews said that any property crime under $5,000 is a misdemeanor and so their “hands are tied.” But he was interested in an assistance program that Councilmember Roche mentioned in passing.
No connection was made between the multiple vacant storefronts and downtown vandalism, though Chief Matthews did say that vandalism usually happens in the early hours of the morning when few people are around.
Mayor Salinas highlighted the door to Cookie’s on B Street, which has remained boarded over several weeks after the vehicle collision that damaged it. Consistently bearish on cannabis businesses, the Mayor recalled that he had been promised by the proprietors that Cookie’s would be like a Tiffany’s. “I’ve been to a Tiffany’s,” he said, “That is no Tiffany’s.”
Vacancies More Important Than Deficit
Councilmember Bonilla took specific notice of the vacancies and asked if the Chief had any concerns about the trends. Chief Matthews said “For ever two we hire, we have one retire,” but that it’s trending in the right direction. Councilmember Bonilla, however, was keen to accelerate hiring. He even mentioned an unnamed jurisdiction that allegedly offers $100,000 hiring bonuses.
“I know that the community is really interested,” Councilmember Bonilla said, “in making sure that we have this fully staffed, sworn police force.” He was open to “aggressive recruitment” with seemingly no concern about the fiscal impact of intense incentive programs. This is at odds with his usual rhetoric on the dais around the looming budget deficit.
Chief Matthews pointed out that most of the recruitment comes from digital ads and word-of-mouth referrals, not the generous signing bonuses. HPD currently offers $20,000 hiring bonuses for sworn officers and $10,000 hiring bonuses for communications officers. The City Council approved a budget with a $5,600,000 deficit in June.
Mayor Salinas asked if there had been feedback on the incentive program and whether or not it was working. Chief Matthews said that many don’t come for the money—though he was quick to say that having competitive pay was important, given the Cop Union recently negotiated a sizeable raise this year. “Feeling a sense of belonging,” he said, “knowing that your work is appreciated… is equally important.”
Cannabis Businesses
Mayor Salinas leaned into issues around illegal cannabis growers who are allegedly being burgled. He and Chief Matthews said that there are a “significant number of illegal growers” in the industrial area of Hayward. Chief Matthews said that, unless people are at risk, HPD doesn’t put priority on robberies from illegal growers. “The risk versus reward is not there,” he said.
An in-person public commenter asked if there was something the City could do to address illegal growers. Chief Matthews said that there was, but it was an issue of capacity. Many calls like that get pushed to the County which can take a while to address things.
New Police Technology Coming
The HPD gave a preview of their upcoming technology requests which leaned heavily into surveillance.
Drones
HPD currently has 13 drones, including one large drone which can operate in inclement weather. In 2024, so far, the drones have been used 56 times. Most of them (45) were classified as “Public safety and life preservation”—the drone website lists them as “Search for felony subject” with no further description. 7 uses were for “high risk search warrants” and 3 for “lost or missing persons”.
Put another way, the use for lost or missing persons accounts for roughly 5% of the drone uses.
FLOCK Cameras
FLOCK Cameras are AI-powered cameras that take pictures of every car that travels past it and flags any that may align with any wanted vehicles. There are currently 50 cameras scattered throughout Hayward, and 44 more are expected to be installed by mid-year 2025.
The cameras are functioning constantly, and so have provided almost 4,000 alerts over the past year. Though by the Chief’s own admission, many of them are the same cars going in and out of the City. The Downtown Hayward Improvement Association (DHIA) may install several privately owned cameras—which HPD will have full access to in their system—and Southland Mall is also considering adding more.
Peregrine Program
HPD is also building out a sort of data-nexus that will allow for better use of all the surveillance data that they’re collecting. The program is called Peregrine and will gather data from at least 6 other technology systems and gathering it all into one place. It is expected to go live in 2025.
AI In The Future
Chief Matthews also said that HPD will be looking at various AI technologies for things like report writing and transcribing body worn camera footage. He spoke of an unnamed program that will apparently take body-worn camera footage and automatically generate narrative report. The benefit would be of less report writing for officers and more time in the field.
Chief Matthews said that the reports would be reviewed before submission, but actual policy remains to be seen. AI in the criminal legal space has consistently been plagued with racist outcomes, given that much of how the criminal legal system works is based on racist assumptions.
Another AI technology being looked at is a translation technology for communications staff, because they only have English and Spanish language speakers on-staff.
Councilmembers Hot For Policing Tech
Mayor Salinas seemed very excited about the possibility of including AI-driven technology in report writing—specifically mentioning having seen it at a Council of Mayors conference. Councilmember Bonilla also praised the Chief for using AI in a strategic fashion and justified its use in a kind of arms race. “Bad guys are using it in a lot of different ways,” he said, “so if we don’t use it, we’re gonna be left behind.”
Councilmember Bonilla asked about the drones and Chief Matthews said that they were used in the same way as a helicopter—primarily for surveillance and communication. He did not mention that some of the drones could break windows, a feature which was included in some presentations over the summer looking to purchase more drones.
“I’m excited about tall the technology,” Councilmember Roche said, though she was concerned about overreliance and what could happen if it ever goes down. Councilmember Bonilla—repeatedly talking over the acting Assistant City Manager and former head of IT—asked if there were drills on technological failures. The Acting City Manager said that whenever IT performs upgrades or network configurations, the software needs to be disabled and so both HFD and HPD regularly practice how to function without them.
While Councilmember Roche seemed to have mixed feelings about AI surveillance technologies, “[It’s] so exciting and so scary,” she said. However, she then asked if individual Homeowner Associations (HOAs) had been told about FLOCK cameras for things like mail theft. Chief Matthews said that he had talked with some, including the Grand Terrace Homeowner’s Association which suffered from a fire recently—but that it was up to them. He pointed out that The Reserve development, near Mission and Tennyson, already had them installed.
Councilmember Bonilla asked about the legality of installing private FLOCK cameras on public streets. Chief Matthews said that, legally it is allowed since there is no expectation of privacy on public streets. He also stressed that the private FLOCK cameras would be fully accessible by HPD, but that the owners would only be able to view their own cameras, not the full network.