(DANVILLE, Calif.) - Starting around 3:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 1, a crew worked its way through downtown Danville with a tool that shatters glass on contact. They hit the Crossroads Shopping Center on San Ramon Valley Boulevard, then Danville Square on Railroad Avenue, then storefronts along the 100 block of Hartz. Sushi place, nail salon, Mexican restaurant, beauty salon, kebab shop. At Dolce Beauté they took snacks and pulled a camera off the wall. At Los Panchos they went for the bar and the registers. They were done before most owners were awake. This publication counted 18 affected businesses. Danville Police put the figure at approximately 14 incidents, commercial and vehicle break-ins combined, and have not updated it publicly since Sept. 5.
Whatever the final number, the town had three patrol beats working overnight. Vice Mayor Robert Storer said so himself at a candidate forum two weeks later, explaining why business owners needed to install their own alarms. "I can't have everybody searching for these criminals," he said. That is the accountability question this town has not asked out loud. Not whether the deputies on duty did their jobs. Whether there were ever enough of them on duty to do it.
(Photo Credit: Danville City)
What Danville actually buys
Danville has never had a police department. Since incorporating in 1982 it has contracted with the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff for police services, an arrangement shared with Orinda and Lafayette, and one the town studied and reaffirmed in 2010. The Sheriff's Office publishes the staffing that contract buys. Two lieutenants. Six sergeants. Fifteen patrol officers, three traffic officers, two school resource officers. And two detectives. Thirty sworn officers and eight professional staff for 44,000 residents. So when the sun came up on Sept. 1, roughly 14 to 18 crime scenes were waiting, each with glass to photograph, footage to pull, a property list to build and an owner to interview. Two detectives had them all, on top of whatever was already open on their desks. Nobody in town government has said publicly what got set aside to make room.
Why nobody had to answer for it
In a city with its own police department, this is a budget fight. A chief asks for another detective. The request goes into a public hearing. A council that has to face voters funds it or explains why not. Residents know whose office to call.
Danville's wiring runs somewhere else.
The Town Council is a customer. The Sheriff, elected countywide, is the employer. The town's police chief is a sheriff's lieutenant or captain assigned here from the county agency, and officers commit to a two-year minimum in Danville before many rotate back to the Sheriff's Office for promotion. The model has genuine advantages and the town has never hidden them. Contract cities fill vacancies faster than departments running their own hiring. Danville gets county homicide, forensics, air support and SWAT without paying to staff any of it. But when a resident asks the council to put another detective on Danville cases, the council cannot do it. It can request an amendment to a service agreement with an agency it does not control and did not elect. There is no local police commission. No Danville budget line to vote up. When the response falls short, the structure makes sure no one in the room is responsible for it. That is not a scandal. It is a design.
What the candidates said about it
The burglaries came up at the Sept. 14 candidate forum at the Family Justice Center on Diablo Road, hosted by DanvilleSanRamon.com and the Danville Area Chamber of Commerce. All three candidates for the two open at-large seats were there. Storer's answer went to business owners: put in alarms, glass-break sensors, cameras. "You have to help our police department," he said. Denton Carlson, the former San Ramon police chief running for Karen Stepper's open seat, raised crime prevention through environmental design, a real discipline he used in law enforcement. "These are crimes of opportunity," he said, describing shrubbery, facade design and lighting as the things that decide whether someone driving through at 3:45 in the morning picks your door.
Pratima Sonavne was the only candidate who turned the question back on the town, calling the spree a reason to examine "whether our resources are being deployed where residents are actually experiencing problems, and whether the results have been measured." None of those answers is wrong on its own. But two of the three moved the next step to the victim's side of the counter, and the owners had already taken it. Most replaced their own glass and reopened within a day. Abdullah Dinc of Sultan's Kebab told KTVU the crew got nothing from him this time, which was thin comfort against the roughly $20,000 he lost in a separate break-in in November.Better locks and better lighting change who gets picked. They do not close a case.
Three weeks later, from another county
An arrest did come. It came on Sept. 16, from Pleasanton. Juan Luis Valdez-Luevano, 19, of Pleasanton was taken into custody as he arrived at the Alameda County Probation Office in Dublin to meet his probation officer. Pleasanton police made the arrest on a Contra Costa warrant and coordinated with San Ramon to search a Pleasanton home and a car the same morning. He faces six felony conspiracy counts and six counts of second-degree burglary in Contra Costa, plus seven burglary counts in Alameda, and is held at the Martinez Detention Facility on a no-bail warrant. San Ramon Lt. Mike Pistello said Valdez-Luevano is a suspect in several commercial burglaries in San Ramon, which is what gave police probable cause to arrest. Asked which Contra Costa cities are in the file, the department declined to say. Danville Police have announced no charges of their own. Twenty-one days. Two other agencies. A probation appointment.
Danville has also spent steadily on automated license plate readers, and Storer called the technology invaluable at the forum, saying the town is updating software for better clarity. Carlson called it an unbelievable tool while arguing agencies should be required to audit Flock searches for misuse. No agency has said a plate read produced the lead here. What is on the record is a probation check-in and three warrants.
Questions with answers somewhere A council can answer all of these without criticizing a single deputy:
How many businesses does the town count as hit on Sept. 1, and why has the figure not been updated since Sept. 5?
How many investigative hours did the two detectives put into the series, and what was set aside to make room?
What does the Sheriff's contract cost Danville, what staffing does it specify, and when was investigative capacity last renegotiated?
Has the town ever formally requested more detective positions? What came back?
Did Danville's ALPR system generate an actionable lead in this case, and did anyone check?
Still open
Valdez-Luevano is expected to be transferred to Alameda County. Pleasanton Lt. Brandon Stocking said investigators are still working to identify additional suspects. San Ramon said it has identified further people of interest and is working to establish their involvement. Pistello called it a complicated and lengthy investigation that will take time to conclude. Danville voters fill two at-large council seats on Nov. 3, choosing among Storer, Carlson and Sonavne. Whoever wins inherits the contract.
To add to or correct any information in this report, please contact me at pratik@lead4earth.org or leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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