Huntington Beach Police Department

Officer B. Smith is a real service to the community… He impounded my wife’s car for late registration, and stranded her on the side of the road as she was heading to work. Great work officer, you have made the city safer with your vigilance!!!
Then just about a few weeks ago, his colleague also from HBPD, by the name of P. Ffau, who looks like a real life dress up from the Village People (not a creep at all), kept me on the side of the road for half an hour, with both my small kids in the back of the car — because I had a cover on my license plate, and he might «not be able to clearly see it». They are really doing a bang up job there at HBPD, and are not, I repeat NOT, just collecting money for the city…

A lot of negative reviews on here. I guess it depends on your situation or interaction & with whom. I’ll try to keep this as short as possible; had a very unwanted individual crashing at my home & I was told the only way to get him out was a restraining order. There was ONE officer (Brian Smith) who was totally gung ho for getting this guy out ASAP & as soon as I got the restraining order, he shot right over to serve it after the unwanted individual assaulted our original server! There were other officers who didn’t help as well, but Officer Smith defines his job… & I have family in law enforcement so he made me proud :))

Rude little bullies are what they are. My grandparents had to leave this city because of how the police would intentionally start problems with them. I never heard of police harassing the elderly and retired until I came to this city.
I also received a minor texting and driving ticket from them. At one point during the stop I had 3 officers around my car with their hands on their gun. They were ready to blow my head off while I was having a panic attack and was asking for them to call for medics. They threatened me to either
A. Sign my violation first and then they would call the ambulance
Or
B. Arrest me and call the medics.
I have it all on video they they were trying to bully someone having a medical emergency so they can move on. I hardly was even able to hold a pen at that moment. How funny is it that when I gave them my signature they left and didn’t even make sure I was okay after continuously asking for help. Karma WILL catch up with these fools. I’m thankful that I am okay, but that city needs a big overhaul because no city in OC is like this hell hole.

Negative interaction with these guys on 4^th of July. Wasn’t allowed through parade route and I had more than enough credentials to go through. I feel like it was because I wasn’t a part of their department or service (I belong to a different service.) but they turned me away and made me go through another route. I ended up having one of the parade volunteers letting me through about two blocks past them (further verifying to me that this was clearly discrimination or ignorance on the part of the two cops) and to further the point I saw people with less through their check point.

They are jerks with bad attitudes. Very drunk with their «power,» very much into throwing their weight around. I haven’t personally had an encounter with them but have observed plenty. If anybody needs body cams, it’s these guys.

I am humored to find a Unilocal page on HB police. As a lawyer and law abiding citizen, I fear HBPD more than I do the criminals. As a guess, the predominance of the PD are ex HS jocks with a below average GPA, no college education and an ax to grind.
About four years ago I had a neighbor who would complain constantly. I’m pretty sure she has 911 programmed into her speed dial. One night she called the police, around 7pm, complaining about noise from my apt, presumably coming from the TV. The police arrived and banged on our door so hard they left dents. When I opened the door they came in without a warrant, claiming exigent circumstances. Admittedly I had been drinking a glass of wine while packing to leave for NY the following morning.
Immediately upon entering the officers stated that someone was going to get arrested, even after seeing that there was nothing going on in the apt. One asked me to step outside. Since I had been drinking, I refused knowing that this was a ploy to get me for public intoxication. This prompted the officer to pull me outside, shove me to the ground, and continue to beat me while handcuffing me. The other officers held tasers to my boyfriend and his friend telling them if they tried to stop the beat down, they would be next.
I was then arrested, charged with resisting arrest, attempted assault on a police officer (claimed that I tried to grab an officers gun) and attempted escape (from where, no one knows). There were no allegations of the officers reasonable suspicion to make the underlying arrest.
The officers took this time to ransack my apt (again without a warrant). I later noticed that about $ 40k in watches, given to me by my now deceased father were missing. Ironically, despite filing a report which included the serial numbers of the watches, they were never found. I find it hard to believe that not one of about 5 watches was never pawned.
After spending 24 hours in jail, I was released on $ 500 bail. The DA later stated that no charges would be filed against me if I didn’t file charges against the officers. As an attorney and not wanting to tarnish a clean record by fighting charges, I agreed. I immediately broke my lease to leave HB and am now scared to even drive through HB.
These officers seriously lack training, simple constitutional knowledge, and are way out of control. For the record, I am a middle aged white woman weighing all of 125 lbs. I just pray that one day someone actually investigates the department and puts an end to their reign of terror.

I would have to say that HB police officers need more training on how to communicate with with people without assaulting them with bad language and physical force. I can honestly say that I personally have witnessed police going to far to fast with no justification when handling the most minor incidents. There are good cops and bad cop’s everywhere but the scary thing we all have to realize is that these bad cop’s can ruin your life just because they can even if you’re a law abiding citizen. I honor those cops who up hold the law and protect us so please don’t misunderstand me, I’m afraid of the one’s with the chip on their shoulder.

Keep in mind this is being written by a very pro police citizen of HB.
At one time, this was a really first rate police department. No longer the case. Now they are so under staffed that they are fielding officers at levels below that of the mid 70’s. The are completely reactive except in regards to parking citations (more later.) If you are a crime victim, do not expect much to be done unless it is a major crime. Otherwise do not expect a call from detectives or them to return your call.
The police officers all seem to have really bad attitudes and act put out even if you have a legitimate need for police assistance. They provide the absolute minimum of service they can get by providing. They don’t really seem to have an interest in what is taking place in the community.
On the other hand, the parking control people issue massive numbers of citations. Yes it is a beach city with a need for parking enforcement especially in the summer. This crew writes for EVERYTHING and they will tell you they have no discretion. A total lie. They are just drunk with what little power they have. And RUDE! They harass and cite business owners for parking in their own driveways while unlocking their business for the day. There is just no courtesy, compassion or common sense. You are a stat. Not a person. Complain to the parking supervisor? She just covers and says they are doing their jobs. Complain to the council and chief, they just refer complaints back to the supervisor. A completely corrupt system.
I challenge anyone to successfully challenge a parking citation in HB. Stage 1, reviewed by the parking supervisor. Automatic guilty. Sage 2, a hearing before an independent hearing officer that refuses to tell you their name or qualifications. Automatic guilty. Want to go to stage 3? You get to make a minimum of 2 trips to court in Santa Ana, waiting in line for hours. and have to pay a $ 100 filing fee just to contest the cite in front of a judge.
We all saw the riots after the surf contest in 2013. This was due to total city mismanagement of the event from top to bottom. The city then tried to rewrite history and began calling it a disturbance. Sorry, all the videos on line show that this was a full blown riot. Yes, 2014 was better but as a whole this department provides a minimum level of police service.

So much for firework control in hb. Afghanistan is more peaceful. Very sad used to love the city. Now I can’t stand it

The jail is tucked away towards the back of the police department and down a bunch of stairs. If your friend or loved one has to go to jail this is one of the nicer ones. The jailers are professional and generally treat people well who treat them with respect. People who have to take medication are usually shipped to the Orange County Jail unless they can be bailed out before they have to be transported to the Orange County Jail.
Visiting hours are from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Each inmate can have one 15 minute visit per day with no more than two visitors per day. They do take your ID so if you have warrants you might want to take care of them before going to the jail.
People arrested for DUI occasionally get their vehicles towed but not as often as you would think. It has been my experience that if there is a safe place to park the vehicle and the person being arrested doesn’t act like a jerk, the police will not tow the vehicle. If a vehicle is towed a release has to be obtained from the police department before it can be picked up from the tow yard. It costs about $ 150 for the release then another $ 150 or more when the vehicle is picked up at the tow yard.

Meh, I’ve seen some better police departments. My review is a couple of weeks late but I still wanted to post it based on what I experienced.
A couple of weeks ago the light was out at Magnolia and Warner. MY husband and I left before 6:00am so there weren’t any cars around. It seemed to have been a planned outage because there were stop signs put out.
When I came back around 7:25am I got off the 405 freeway using the Warner exit. The exit was backed up around the bend. I finally got around the bend after about 10 minutes and saw there were accidents on pretty much every side of that intersection and the light was still out. There were about 7 police cars there and NONE of them thought to start directing traffic or calling for backup to direct traffic.
It took me over an hour to get from the exit to the LIGHT at Warner and Magnolia. Everyone who lives or has used that exit knows how close it is and it takes ²⁰⁄₃₀ seconds in normal traffic. After I make it through the light I look down Magnolia in both directions and see if backed up in both directions as far as I could see. I proceeded up Warner to Beach and the traffic was backed up PAST Beach.
This was on a weekday during rush hour. All of those officers that were there (there were plenty just standing around too) never thought to direct traffic or call for backup to do so or they simply just didn’t give two sh*ts about it. You would think with so many accidents happening at that intersection and seeing the traffic is extremely backed up that they would have done something.
I called the regular PD line and spoke to an operator and told him how long it took me, how many accidents there were, how far it was backed up in all four directions, that there were numerous officers there, some just standing around, and nothing was being done. The man was very nice and understanding, he even said himself that he doesn’t understand why none of the officers were directing traffic or why they hadn’t called for a backup. He said that he was dispatching an officer right away to start directing traffic. He didn’t even that the light was out either, he had no records of it being planned or reported before I called.
I don’t know if they were just being lazy or didn’t care but that was absurd and out of control. I do suggest that if anyone comes across something similar to this to call and request an officer to direct traffic. I wish I had thought of it while I was sitting there but hopefully they had sent someone out and cleared that up for that day.

The meter made brigade in this town are shaking down the citizens for excessive fines and aggressive ticketing. The street sweeper hits one side of the street on the 1^st and 3^rd Monday and the other side of the street on the 1^st and 3^rd Tue. That’s 4 days a month they can screw you. Then on some months it gets staggers. On those days because they are confusing, they run 2 meter maids because they have more people forget. That’s just disgusting to be taking advantage of the confusion to increase profit. The criminal justice system has become a for profit business. If crime went away, the courts would be broke. They have an incentive to maintain the status quo. Incarceration makes no real reform effort. This is just a s! all sign of how our Government is against We The People. They look at us as subjects of the empire.

HBPD was fast to respond when I was struck by a a hit and run motorist.

Does this department racially profile? Totally! Does this department have some real dicks? Totally! What is wrong with this department? A lot! But, they really try hard to keep HB safe. They have volunteers too. HB’s beach is fairly lawless most of the year. In the summer they patrol the City Beach with ATVs. If you think it is fine to riot here, you are wrong. They managed to break up the riot very quickly. Yes, this is a department with serious issues. But, the chief and many of the Captains and Lts. are professional, intelligent, and educated. Seriously! Some of these guys have Master’s degrees. Also, 4^th of July 2011 I lost my prescription glasses during the parade, and came down here to the station and they had them! I was amazed! The officer was a total dick when I came to pick them up… but I got them back!

It’s probably not smart to pan a police department on Unilocal… but something has to be said.
So I went to the US Open of Surfing and there were cops everywhere– EVERYWHERE. Except that is, directing the insane traffic. They were all standing our on the streets or on the beach perving out at all the bikini’s while the traffic really could have used a hand.
Lame use of resources!

Came here to pick up my police report and surprisingly this police dept is nice compared to the Westminster Police dept. There’s easy to locate & free parking under solar power shades which helped on a rainy day! The police dept was easy to locate and actually looked welcoming when you walk through the door. The front desk was really nice and she helped me get the report pretty fast. No attitudes from the popo here either :)