ROSEMEAD - Crime is down in the city of Rosemead. And Police Chief Tim Murakami - who is a lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department out of its Temple Station - said it's no accident.

"What the city did is something that hasn't been done before," Murakami said of being a police chief while also being a sworn officer with the sheriff's department. "What happened is that when the last public safety director's contract expired, (the Rosemead City Council) didn't renew it. What they did was put me in charge of all the public safety personnel, both the county employees and city employees."

Murakami said the decision is paying off now.

"It was a smart move for them on their part," said Murakami, who was appointed to his position last August. "It was a win on both sides in terms of cost savings, but also having a unified command instead of having two different entities trying to work together."

So, how has he been enjoying the job?

"It's been awesome," he said. "Crime is still going down. Almost right after they made the change, crime went down 60 percent. Overall, for the year it was down 9.49 percent."

Murakami said he doesn't mind taking direction from the council in addition to getting it from Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

"We're all working together," he said. "What's so awesome about this is we've got city support, community support and we have a motivated staff that's enthusiastic and they take a lot of pride in what they do."

Murakami said, though, his deputies follow allow sheriff's department procedures and policies while he looks to city hall for guidance.

"The city will let them know what are they concerned about, like drinking in public, transients, prostitution - those are more quality of life issues and we take care of them," he said.

In addition, Murakami said while the department is pleased with the drop in the crime rate, they are still working hard to make it go down even further. However, he said the economy has made one area of crime a bit difficult to control.

"This year, we're still driving down major crimes," he said. "The only category going up is thefts. It's all over the San Gabriel Valley. We can only do so much as law enforcement. We need the community to help us out (in preventing property crimes)."

Mandy Wong, a public safety coordinator for the city, said one thing the department has re-introduced is the neighborhood watch program and it's proving to be invaluable.

"We have rebuilt it since 2008," Wong said. "It kind of fizzled out a bit and we jump-started it. Now, we have 26 new block captains throughout the city. They are our eyes and ears out there. They report anything that's suspicious and then our patrols will go out there and see if there is anything out of the ordinary."

She added she is very pleased with the work done by the block captains.

"Our block captains really do a good job," Wong said. "Most of the time when they call there is something going on down there."

Murakami said knowing your own neighborhood is key to having a successful watch program.

"You kind of know the people who live there," he said. "If there is something out of place and somebody who shouldn't be there, they call."

And what happens when the deputies get there?

"We can arrest the guy because he's committed a crime, we can identify him and prevent a crime, or he can check out OK," Murakami said. "Sometimes, we can solve crimes. Maybe that guy didn't do anything there but did something somewhere else and we can solve a crime that way."

(Shel Segal can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)