CARLSBAD — The Carlsbad City Council approved the creation of a new community-oriented policing team, along with six additional sworn police positions and more than $680,000 in one-time funding on Tuesday.
Carlsbad Police Chief Christie Calderwood advocated for a Community-Oriented Policing and Problem-Solving team, commonly known as COPPS, after an internal assessment was conducted last year. The team would focus on crime prevention, quality-of-life issues, and community engagement, shifting some non-emergency responsibilities away from patrol officers.
The council authorized six new full-time positions — one lieutenant, one sergeant and four police officers — and $684,350 in one-time appropriations from the city’s General Fund for the current fiscal year. Those funds would cover equipment and vehicle purchases needed to launch the team.
“The assessment identified several ongoing and future challenges in our city and within the law enforcement landscape,” Calderwood told the council. “The challenges presented included a growing population, changes in housing types, recent changes in state law, the city’s crime trends, response times, staffing challenges and other factors impacting workload. We’ve seen other challenges arise or be compounded. The continued e-bike usage … and increases in protests across the country. In 2025 alone, we staffed 17 protests.”
Calderwood said the new team is necessary to address recurring crime trends and quality-of-life complaints while keeping patrol officers focused on emergency calls. The department reported that while it has long embraced a community policing philosophy, increasing call volume and expectations for rapid response have made it difficult to sustain proactive engagement without dedicated staffing.
She also detailed the past three weeks of police activity with several major incidents, such as a stabbing, a shooting, an elder scam, a victim who was attacked with a machete, a social media influencer entering La Costa Canyon High School, and middle school students fighting in Poinsettia Park, which made national news over the racial overtones during the incident. Calderwood said over the first three weeks of March, the department has taken nearly 7,000 calls and opened 400 cases.
Additionally, Carlsbad is one of just two cities without a dedicated COPPS team, she said.
The COPPS team would work with residents, businesses, schools, and community organizations to identify recurring problems and develop long-term solutions using a nationally recognized problem-solving model known as SARA — scanning, analysis, response and assessment.
The lieutenant will oversee the COPPS and Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) and park rangers, Assistant Chief Reid Shipley said. Currently, a CPD special investigations lieutenant oversees the HOT officers, and Shipley said that with the new chain of command, it will free up the SI lieutenant to focus on the most pressing and sensitive cases facing the department.
Shipley said consolidating those responsibilities would improve coordination and accountability while reducing the need to pull patrol officers away from 911 calls to attend community meetings, protests, and ongoing neighborhood issues.
“The COPPS team … would provide a dedicated resource to identify, address criminal trends and quality of life issues throughout the city,” Calderwood added. “This team would also support the department’s efforts to reduce response times for calls for service.”
The department also argues the new team could help improve response times for the most serious calls. Carlsbad’s five-year strategic plan sets a goal of responding to Priority 1 calls in under six minutes, a benchmark the department did not meet in 2025. Officials say addressing chronic, non-emergency issues through the COPPS team would reduce repeat calls for service and keep patrol officers available for urgent incidents.
To help fund the one-time costs, staff recommend reducing a previously planned $3 million allocation for a full police radio replacement to $100,000, freeing $2.9 million to bolster the General Fund reserve. Calderwood said a full replacement is no longer necessary and that radios can continue to be replaced in smaller batches as needed.
“I look at something like this as an investment in the quality of life,” Mayor Keith Blackburn added.
Ongoing salary, benefit and operating costs would be added to the city’s fiscal year 2026-27 budget, with CPD estimating the new positions would increase its annual operating budget by about $1.6 million beginning next fiscal year.
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