He handled a snowstorm, road closures, an officer involved shooting, a burglary, a SWAT team and a helicopter crash. And that was just one day on the job. Sure, that December day was more chaotic than usual, but the juggling of so many different aspects of management is the single biggest challenge Captain Anthony La Berge faces as the top cop in the area.“It’s a 24/7 job,” said La Berge, a Canyon Country resident with a wife and two children. “I was Captain at the Transit Services Bureau. It’s definitely more time intensive here.”

He was appointed Santa Clarita’s Sheriff’s Captain two years ago, bringing more than 20 years of experience with him, most recently as unit commander for the Office of Homeland Security, Transit Services South Bureau. As our police chief, La Berge’s responsibilities have expanded in variety and geography.

According to La Berge, the department covers the area up to Gorman, west to the Ventura County border, to the Angeles National Forest and includes the Acton/Agua Dulce area.

Not unlike the broad borders of his jurisdiction, the police chief’s responsibilities are also wide ranging. “I have the community’s concerns, I go to the city meetings, I have the county responsibilities, the unincorporated areas. I have my own departmental stuff – the sheriff’s department – a lot of accountability, running a jail,” explained La Berge. “You want to balance your personal/private life as well. You get calls in the middle of the night … various organizations that request you to come. You just can’t go to everything.”

And then there’s handling the chaos of crime. “We have less assaults, robberies, crimes of violence, but we have more property crime,” said La Berge of the types of lawlessness in this area. “Within the city we do have hot spots or pockets. There are various areas that we’re aware of. Low crime areas have fewer deputies there. We’ll be where the crimes are happening. Sometimes it’s a good thing when you don’t see the deputies (in your neighborhood).”

Areas of high-density housing tend to have more needs for police. “With more people come various issues,” he said. “Not just crime; people can’t get along, traffic issues.”

Juggling the desires of residents and keeping them safe can be a challenge. The sheriffs deal with traffic hot spots, said La Berge, and then residents complain that they’re ticketing the neighborhood. Issues vary with each of Santa Clarita’s communities, but there isn’t one section that has all the crime. “We know which communities or neighborhoods have a higher concentration of problems,” explained the chief. “We know where the kids are gang members … problem houses or problem apartment complexes.” Briefings are held regularly to share information about unlawful situations, at which time La Berge “can assign a team or a deputy to find out what’s going on,” said the police captain.

Certain officers are assigned to a sort of “top spot” in different areas, such as Sgt. Ron Olfert, the liaison to Canyon Country. “I have some who can research or set up an operation,” said La Berge. “There is Brenda Cambra, who attends the West Ranch Town Council meetings … I have a Newhall deputy, Joe Trejo, assigned to the Activities Center. It’s a ‘town sheriff’ type of position. Like people drinking alcohol in the park, and following up on stuff.”

Capt. La Berge may be the best thing to ever happen to the department’s public relations. The most notable change he has made is in its image. “I saw some areas where we could do better: service, contacts with the public,” he began. “The first point of contact is when people call the desk, and I’d heard there were complaints of unresponsiveness; just overall we weren’t handling all the calls … we worked with our lieutenants so everybody understood how we wanted to service the public.”

The captain wanted to reverse some of the attitudes people had about the force. “There was a perception in the community that we didn’t do a whole lot,” he said. “I see firsthand what the men and women are doing. People weren’t getting the information out in the public.”

Thanks to some alterations in communication, that is changing. The Sheriff’s Station has a website (www.scvsherrif.com) which contains latest news, crime tips and most wanted lists, etc., and bulletins go out regularly to members on an email list. “We can put out a lot more of the good work going on and alert the public,” said La Berge. “We’re working better with the media and have improved media relations. The downside is that now so many people hear about the crime that they think it’s always happening. If deputies caught three burglars, the only story before that I heard was that somebody’s house was burglarized, not hear that they were taken into custody … now we have the ability to give a recap to the community. It’s changing the public perception. It’s always been going on, people just didn’t know about it.”

La Berge came into the job to “an outdated, overcrowded facility,” he described. “Innovative personnel have brought in ideas to modernize the desks for better capabilities.”

Still, administration work does not mean crime fighting falls off the radar. “It’s always fluctuating,” La Berge explained. “Sometimes there’s a spike in assaults. Those are constantly going up and down. We are constantly looking at numbers. We have a crime analyst that brings to our attention what we’ve had a lot of. We can use that to set up an operation. We look for patterns.”

One pattern the top cop would like the public to heed more often is to reduce their vulnerability to crime. “These are crimes of opportunity,” he said. “They check for unlocked cars. A lot of people don’t lock their doors. It’s a safe community, but not crime-free.”