Santa Monica Police Department Chief Ramon Batista announced his intentions to resign.<\/p>\n
In a letter submitted to the city manager\u2019s office, Batista shared he plans to step down from his role at the department. He served as Santa Monica\u2019s police chief for nearly four years and alluded in his resignation letter that possible conflict may have led to his decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I step aside, I do so recognizing that my nearly 40 years of experience in public safety and policing, my deeply held sense of justice, and following not only the spirit, but the letter of the law, appear to be at odds from demands from the new administration,\u201d one version of Batista\u2019s resignation letter read.<\/p>\n
Following news of the resignation, Santa Monica Mayor Lana Negrete applauded Batista\u2019s leadership during his time with the department.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe built out things like the cameras around the city and the drone system,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cA crime impact team that\u2019s focusing on specific crimes around the city.<\/p>\n
Former Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter May 31st, 2020, the police department’s morale was at all-time low,\u201d he said. \u201cThe previous chief had underperformed, to say the least, and I believe very strongly that Chief Batista came in, restored trust with the community, and restored trust with his police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Batista\u2019s initial resignation letter mentioning the \u201cnew administration,\u201d Mayor Negrete said she was unsure what the chief meant.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t know what the chief\u2019s meaning was behind it because I haven\u2019t spoken to him about that,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what I do know, in my conversations with the City Manager, is Oliver Chi knows and understands that safety comes first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resignation is the latest shakeup in Santa Monica\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
In May, Chi was appointed as the City Manager, and the City Council then fired the Downtown Santa Monica Board in late July.<\/p>\n
Batista declined NBC4\u2019s request for an interview.<\/p>\n
Santa Monica Deputy Chief Darrick Jacob\u00a0will serve as acting chief while the department searches for a permanent hire. Batista is slated to step down on Oct. 4 after 40 years of experience in public safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Monica Police Department Chief Ramon Batista announced his intentions to resign. In a letter submitted to the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":178813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,9503],"class_list":{"0":"post-178812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-santa-monica"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115098845404230632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}