Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced the expansion of California Highway Patrol crime suppression teams to major regions across the state.
The new deployments will target San Diego, the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, the Central Valley, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. CHP officers will work directly with local law enforcement to saturate high-crime areas, arrest repeat offenders and seize illegal weapons and narcotics.
The announcement follows operations launched in 2024 in Bakersfield, San Bernardino and Oakland. Those efforts have resulted in more than 9,000 arrests, nearly 5,800 recovered stolen vehicles and more than 400 firearms seized, according to the governor’s office.
“These crime suppression teams will provide critical support to our local partners by focusing on crime where it happens most,” CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee said in a statement. “By combining resources, intelligence, and personnel, we can better disrupt criminal activity and strengthen the safety and security of communities across California.”
The move comes as crime has reemerged as a political flashpoint nationally. President Donald Trump recently deployed thousands of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., taking control of the city’s police force despite reports that violent crime there was at its lowest level in three decades. He has since suggested expanding federal intervention to other cities, including San Francisco and Oakland.
Newsom’s office contrasted California’s crime trends with Republican-led states, noting that California’s homicide rate remains well below national hotspots. In 2024, the state recorded a homicide rate of 5.1, which was nearly four times lower than Mississippi (19.4) and Louisiana (19.3), and less than half the rates in Alabama, Tennessee, and several Southern states.
State officials said California’s homicide rate last year was the second lowest since at least 1966.
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