Meeting Recap of Sept 27, 2010

Captain Cooper has 26 years of distinguished service on the force and currently heads the “high tech” crimes task force in the County.  He also has a distinguished record as a public servant as a three time city councilmember and two time mayor of neighboring Elk Grove.  He is currently running for the office of Sacramento County sheriff. 

Captain Cooper lamented the recent lay-off of over 120 sheriff’s deputies due to the prolonged recession and the concurrent loss of police investigation and proactive crime prevention services in certain areas.   He opined of a certain level of dysfunction within the department, which in his view might be remedied by new leadership and different approaches to the job.  He noted that crucial grant funds must be sought in a timely manner, and that he believed inter-departmental and county/city coordination might help provide better and more efficient services.  He is willing to bring his leadership and passion to develop regional operations to law enforcement, rather than the current city and county specific approach.  He also wants to try to improve the county jail system to provide basic educational services to inmates with the hopes of improving literacy and possibly reducing recidivism.  

Finally, Captain Cooper’s opinion is that the legalization of marijuana in California would be a very bad development.  While he supported limited legalization for strictly medicinal purposes, he feels that some of the “pot” advocates have taken advantage of the sentiment and are going way too far with the current proposed ballot initiative.  He views marijuana as a “gateway” drug that often leads to the use of more damaging and addictive “hard” drugs, and that our current “drug crazed society” should not encourage ever more drug use by legalizing pot at this time.  We sincerely thank Captain Cooper for his public service as an officer and we thank him for his interesting presentation to our members.