Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Deputies Receive Awards

On February 26, 2008, the County Board of Supervisors honored several County employees that have demonstrated excellent service to the community. In the Justice category, the Sheriff’s Office was pleased to have two deputies win the Silver and Bronze awards.

In the Silver category, Sergeant Dan Campos won this award for his outstanding efforts to highlight the growing crime of Identity Theft to the public and ways to prevent one from becoming a victim.

 He developed a public education and law enforcement training matrix for presentations to civic groups and other law enforcement agencies. In addition to his fulltime job of supervising the Sheriff’s Property Crimes Investigation section, he spent many hours developing this course.  In the past year, Sergeant Campos has given lectures to many segments of the community, including public and private organizations.  He used his personal time to perfect this training.  To date, his presentations have reached hundreds of community members and nearly all the law enforcement officers in the county.  In addition, he made sure much of this information regarding Identity Theft was made available on the Sheriff’s website at www.scsheriff.com for easy access by the public.  His dedication to fighting this type of growing crime is greatly appreciated and to be commended.

In the Bronze category, Sergeant Bill Gazza won this award for his outstanding efforts in the development of a training plan and countywide protocol in dealing with violent intruders on school campuses in conjunction with the County Office of Education. Sergeant Gazza is assigned as the community policing sergeant for the San Lorenzo Valley Sheriff’s Center and is a Team Leader on the Sheriff’s SWAT team.

As part of this project, Sergeant Gazza assessed various school campuses for their vulnerability and developed relationships with local school administrators to develop a safety plan for each campus. He planned and coordinated two real life training scenarios involving multiple county police agencies, fire personnel, and medics.  More than 75 law enforcement officers participated in this valuable training along with students and teachers. His training was well-planned and carried out in a safe and professional manner.  He worked with school officials to solve the logistical issues of having this training during school hours and making sure parents were informed about their children’s’ participation. Although this type of potential violence on campus is not something that the public thinks could ever happen in Santa Cruz County, tragic school incidents across the country have proven otherwise. Our local school officials and the County Office of Education realized the relevance and necessity of this training and should be acknowledged for preparing for this critical incident. Law enforcement officers are now better equipped to respond and work with officers from other agencies that might show up to campus violence.  Sergeant Gazza is commended for his efforts to keep our children prepared and safe. Special recognition should also go to JoAnn Allen, of the County Office of Education, for her valuable contribution and hard work on this project.

Deputies Rob Lindblad, Mitch Medina, Naomi Silva, and Doug Smith were recently honored for their efforts involving a fatal DUI crash a year ago. Deputy Lindblad received the Sheriff’s Bronze Medal for Distinguished Service for his role in discovering and requesting law, fire and ambulance, respond to a horrific crash on Highway 1 in the early morning hours while going home after completing his shift of work.  Deputy Lindblad discovered a badly mangled vehicle in the center median of the highway with passengers, including young children, scattered about and injured. He summoned assistance and several deputies and California Highway Patrol staff responded. Deputies Naomi Silva and Doug Smith helped locate the victims and render comfort and emergency medical care. Deputy Medina became the Incident Commander and directed the response of many emergency units to the scene, including the temporary closure of Highway 1 so that medical evacuation helicopters could land to quickly transport victims to various hospitals. Deputies Silva, Smith and Medina received Letters of Commendation for Outstanding Performance for their extraordinary efforts. Although one child later died as a result of the crash involving a DUI driver (who was later prosecuted and convicted), these officers’ efforts greatly aided the victims in this tragedy.

These deputies deserve special recognition for their performances. Be assured that our staff and other police and fire agencies do heroic things every day to keep their communities safe.