Tehama County sheriff suspends daytime patrols "due to catastrophic staffing shortage"

The sheriff of Tehama County (California) has announced in a statement that he is suspending daytime patrols. The reason given is the "catastrophic shortage of personnel." The county has been having problems recruiting new officers in recent years due to "salary disparities,” among other reasons.

"Beginning November 20, 2022, the Tehama County Sheriff's Office will suspend day-time patrol services to its designated areas of responsibility within Tehama County. This added reduction in services is necessary to manage a catastrophic staffing shortage throughout the agency," Sheriff Dave Hencratt said in the statement.

"Unprecedented"

He then proceeded to explain that "over the past several years, the Sheriff's Office has had diffilcuties with employee recruitment and retention of employees, which has been directly linked to pay disparities. A drastic increase in attrition coupled with the inability to present attractive recruiting efforts have resulted in an unprecedented staffing shortage."

"Most recently, staffing shortages in the custody division have forced the Sheriff's Office to reassign Deputies from the operations division to fill vacancies within the courts and jail facilities. This unfortunate but necessary restructuring has left the operations division with insufficient staff to sustain 24-hour patrol services," the release states.

As long as this situation continues, the California Highway Patrol has agreed to respond to emergencies during the day. In addition, other local police departments will continue to patrol within their cities. However, the Sheriff's Department's decision is of particular concern in the more rural areas that are not under the supervision of police departments or the CHP.