Oxnard Police Chief John Crombach has retired, effective November 5th, after a career than spanned a third of a century.
During his five and a half years as Oxnard’s police chief the crime rate in Oxnard dropped by more than 22% per capita. Since 1992 the crime rate dropped by nearly 65% – one of the sharpest declines in any city in the nation.
He was Oxnard’s first home-grown chief in more than four decades when he took over in 2005. Before that, every police chief since the 1960’s came from outside the department.
Chief Crombach spent his entire law enforcement career leading by example – crossing cultural, economic, and other societal boundaries to bring together diverse coalitions of residents and businesses to prevent and address crime and disorder problems.
He helped develop an innovative “Cultural Competency” program in Oxnard that brings police and community members together. This cultural competency training has forged long lasting and productive community partnerships.
His commitment to establishing community partnerships and providing transparency in the problem-solving process were widely credited with helping build an excellent police-community trust and cooperation while getting dramatic crime-reduction results.
Crombach was a well known law enforcement leader in California – writing op-ed pieces on juvenile justice issues and testifying before the California State Assembly on issues such as gang injunctions.
For his commitment towards building bridges of understanding and effective collaboration between significantly diverse groups in his community, Chief Crombach was recognized numerous times through awards from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the NAACP.
As Chief, John Crombach developed a neighborhood policing model for all four districts in the City, which was employed to provide tailored services to meet the expectations and priorities of Oxnard’s very diverse community.
The unique, trend-setting police-community efforts in Oxnard during the past several years earned the Oxnard Police Department the distinguished James Q. Wilson Award for excellence in community policing from the U.S. Department of Justice – one of the highest honors any police department can receive.
Currently, Chief Crombach serves on the board of directors of the century old National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the California Police Chief’s Association, the Ventura County Justice Policy Taskforce, and the Greater Oxnard Boys and Girls Club.
He has also served on the board of directors of Oxnard’s component of California First Five, a statewide effort to educate parents and caregivers about the important role they play in their children’s early development.
A new Chief is expected to be named soon and will likely assume command of the department in January.
That person will run a department that has a $50 million budget and 238 sworn officers.
