San Diego Harbor Police Chief Kirk Sanfilipo , 51, started his law enforcement career with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department in 1978. He joined the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety in 1981. Wanting a new challenge 22 years later, he joined the San Diego Harbor Police Department as a captain in 2003. He was named acting chief in April 2005, then chief two months later, overseeing an agency with an annual budget of $27.1 million.
Sanfilipo is married to Jody, has an adult stepdaughter, Lacey , and a West Highland terrier, Moses.
We recently talked to him about his job.
QUESTION: What does the Harbor Police Department do?
ANSWER: Tidelands vehicle patrol, San Diego Harbor vessel patrol and marine firefighting, airport law enforcement and homeland security operations. In airport law enforcement, we use five Transportation Safety Administration-trained K-9 teams for explosives detection.
What is the jurisdiction of the Harbor Police Department?
It's set up with 2,500 acres of tidelands spread out through five (San Diego Unified Port District) member cities (San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado). Some of it is developed property, some of it is undeveloped; some of it is a pier, park or parking lot. We also have 3,500 acres of water on San Diego Bay.
How many employees does the department have?
There are 145 sworn officers, 28 staff support members, 10 retired senior volunteers, two volunteer chaplains and two college interns. About 50 percent are dedicated to the airport and 50 percent to traditional patrol, vessel patrol and marine firefighting. They all have fire turnouts on the boats and now, in all the vehicles. A lot of money is saved having the officers in dual roles. Everyone is cross-trained as a police officer and marine firefighter.
What doesn't the public know about the department?
Twenty-six officers are trained as part of a SCUBA-dive team. They do random security dives around the harbor for subsurface improvised explosive devices. We have a Memorandum of Understanding with the Navy – possibly the only one of its kind in the nation – to dive on any naval asset to find and identify subsurface explosive devices. And the Navy will come and render safe any explosive device on (Port District) public property. That way we don't have to have an explosives ordnance team.
Have your teams ever found a live device?
Fortunately, no.
What keeps the department busiest?
The largest volume of activity is aviation security. We take possession of weapons TSA finds; respond to door alarms, a lot of property calls, theft calls; and occasionally you have drunk people in the airport.
In vehicle patrols, we get about 53,000 calls for service every year, about 145 a day. We get a lot of warrant arrests, DUIs, grand thefts from hotels, retail facilities, the convention center.
What's ahead?
There is a request afoot for a new Harbor Police facility. We have 9,000 square feet with a need for 44,000 square feet. I'd like to be with the rest of the Port District. We need to integrate and be a part of the whole. The dilemma is where, and how to fund it.
– Pauline Repard
