There is a marked and noticeable change in policing in Desert Hot Springs since former chief Dale Mondary resigned.
Living here in DHS has taught me, as I believe other people have been taught, to watch for things going on in our city. Lately I’ve noticed that there has been a marked change in policing in our beautiful city. I first thought it was a change that had to do with Memorial day and the annual increased police activity for the weekend that is to be expected on that holiday.
But lately I have noticed a real change.
A change that has led me to believe that our new police chief Jim Henson is taking our local policing to a different level than former chief Dale Mondary took us.
At the last city council meeting our new chief Jim Henson broke down our newest and latest statistics on arrests, traffic stops, 911 calls, etc. The numbers looked good from a layman’s perspective but it wasn’t until the last couple of days that I realized something just might be different here with him.
Let’s go back.
Under the leadership of Dale Mondary we had a city council that on the surface said they loved him and liked what he was doing for the city. But was that the full story?
Only people that can understand multi dimensional thinking will understand what I’m about to describe.
Hear me out.
What if the group of people that proclaimed that they love chief Dale Mondary during their candle light vigil for him that was recently held at the DHSPD after his elicit texts were made public were either being duped into attending that event or they were playing a role?
The only other explanation for what appears to be going on is that the new chief Henson is dabbling in a new approach to policing that the city council and city manager are unaware of.
Let me expound upon a possible reality.
Let’s imagine Former Police Chief Dale Mondary was a great choice on paper before he was employed here and he was hired to do the job in DHS because of his years and years of excellent service.
A couple years after he’s hired let’s imagine the city as a whole is not fully satisfied with his results he is bringing in for our city.
Now what?
Let me bring to you a possible story line. Dale Mondary get’s hired as police chief of DHS. Dale Mondary has already earned one pension so he’s set in his policing ways. Dale Mondary is a nice guy so the city council has to be nice in return. Dale Mondary is more like a Barney Fife type of Cop and the city council later realizes… darn!!!! They need someone more tough on crime in the city than Dale Mondary is. Plus there was a scandal where an officer was aggressive with a resident in a strip mall parking lot that created a viral video. And there was the chronic open container violations on a consistent basis at bus stops around town that no one in the DHSPD seemed to care about most of the time.
So now what?
Well there are the text messages between the chief and the girlfriend of the DHSPD Detective 2 years ago.
Does someone inside government then bring the text messages out into daylight to embarrass the chief thus force him to resign thus make Jim Henson the new Chief?
We will probably never know but there’s one thing we do know. And that’s that multi dimensional operations DO exist and ARE utilized by government and institutions to gain an advantage they seek.
So was the decision made by city of DHS staff and the Desert Hot Springs City Council to remove Chief Dale Mondary and replace him with new Chief Jim Henson at least temporarily? Did the city council and the vigil attendees pretend to love Chief Dale Mondary so that he may receive a semi-honorable send off from his post here in DHS?
Did the parties involved hatch a plan to get Dale Mondary the most respectful send off he could get considering he flirted with a much younger lady he wasn’t married to in exchange for a new chief that fit the city’s goals better?
Did they do all this because Chief Henson will now bring more aggressive policies to DHS that the city council and staff have desired for a long time now?
Again there were multiple examples of embarrassing situations that the Police in Desert Hot Springs found themselves in including the texting scandal between an officer and an informant. Also there was the continued drinking of alcohol by the homeless at the bus stops.
Did the city council or others decide enough was enough and something had to be done about the lax leaning enforcement of rules that come with a seasoned veteran of the PD like Mondary was?
Was he such a nice guy that the best way to take him out was to make him take a fall that left the only cleanup between him and his wife and kids?
Again, we may never know. But what we do know is what we see on our streets and what we see is a slight change in the approach to policing in Desert Hot Springs. And I for one am happy to see the policing going in a more aggressive pro active direction than it was under Former Chief Dale Mondary.
Now let’s just hope the criminals don’t want to offset those statistics and lead us into a more dangerous future. Because there’s always a wild card to policing. It’s either a recession, or economic hardships or the people with criminal intents deciding collectively that it’s time to get aggressive. They can always enter the arena and upset the positive stats that the police chiefs announce.
And they can do this at any moment if they so please.
