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The California Highway Patrol will expand its presence into another Bay Area city to combat crime, weeks after a petition started by a resident urged state leaders to deploy officers to combat crime amid a local police staffing shortage.
Car sideshows, where people show off their vehicles and often perform dangerous stunts in vacant lots and public intersections, as well as drug crime, shootings and shoplifting, have made life in the enclave of Vallejo much more dangerous, resident Paula Conley wrote in a petition posted on Change.org.
Conley and other residents urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to deploy California Highway Patrol officers to Vallejo in similar fashion to how the governor sent CHP officers to Oakland earlier in 2024 to address a crime surge there.
“We started seeing their (crime) statistics go down and their quality of life get better and getting a better handle on crime,” Conley told Fox News Digital. “We have the exact same problems Oakland does, but we’re just a smaller city. It’s going to take manpower to really help us.”
“The Vallejo Police Department collaborates daily with our neighboring law enforcement agencies, and we are grateful for their consistent mutual aid support,” he said. “As we continue to rebuild, we remain open to exploring additional formalized police service support that enhances public safety for our community.”
Deploying more CHP officers to Vallejo would come months after Newsom had the state agency send officers in February to Oakland to address crime, including vehicle and organized retail theft and violent crime.
“As crime rates across California decrease — including right across the Bay in San Francisco — Oakland is seeing the opposite trend,” Newsom said at the time. “What’s happening in this beautiful city and surrounding area is alarming and unacceptable. I’m sending the California Highway Patrol to assist local efforts to restore a sense of safety that the hardworking people of Oakland and the East Bay demand and deserve.”
In July, the governor announced that he would quadruple the number of shifts CHP officers conduct in the city after CHP’s recovery of over a thousand stolen cars, seizure of 55 guns linked to crimes and the arrest of 562 suspects in the East Bay since February.
Newsom announced last week that CHP would remain in Oakland for an additional month to boost the law enforcement presence there. He also criticized local leaders for not changing a policy that limits police pursuits of fleeing criminals, despite him asking them to over the summer, saying “they had a chance and they didn’t do it.”
Vallejo lies roughly 25 miles south of Oakland.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a surge of law enforcement officers to Oakland over the summer. (Getty Images)
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Newsom’s office referred to a CHP statement highlighting CHP’s work in Vallejo.
“The CHP is present and active in Vallejo and will continue to work with community stakeholders, including its police department, to ensure that its community is safe and protected,” CHP Sgt. Andrew Barclay said.
CHP has contacted Ta, the interim Vallejo police chief, regarding law enforcement assistance to help bolster the police presence in the area, CHP said. Units from CHP’s Solano area office have been advised to assist on Vallejo streets when free or in the area, Barclay said.
In response to ther petition, much of the feedback has been positive, said Conley, who cited her frustration for why she created it in the first place.
“I’ve tried working with our city and tried to get answers and everything, and I’ve talked to the county. I’m like ‘Well, who else can we go to?’ Let’s go to the governor,” she said. “I’ve never done a petition. This is all new to me. There’s a lot of apathy in our city because things have been bad for a long time and they kind of stay that way.”