Public Safety: Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District Ranger Program*

Conclusions 2

• CL1 Page 3
  Penal Code sections 933 and 933.05 require that we respond to "findings" and "recommendations," but do not specifically mention "conclusions." However, we wish to respond to Conclusion C-02: A lack of awareness of the mission, duties, enforcement authority, and responsibilities of the Ranger Program has resulted in the District having difficulty obtaining criminal prosecution through the VCDA. We disagree wholly with this conclusion. In one case in 2006, an individual was cited by a District ranger for resisting, delaying, or obstructing an officer in the attempt to discharge his duties under Penal Code section 148(a)(1). (This is a different individual and a different incident than the two rejected cases discussed in the Findings section above.) The case was ultimately accepted by the District Attorney's Office for prosecution. But before that occurred, our complaint review deputy sent a Complaint Request Evaluation to the District asking for a copy of the skateboarding ordinance the ranger was attempting to enforce. Requesting such a copy is not an unusual request when dealing with the ordinances of a special district. Although our law library has copies of state statutes, county ordinances and city ordinances, we do not have ready access to ordinances of districts such as park districts or port districts. (Ordinance No. 2 of the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District has since been posted on its Web site.) Prosecution for section 148 requires that we prove that the officer was in the lawful performance of his duties at the time the defendant resisted, so it is important to know what law he was enforcing. In that same Complaint Request Evaluation, we asked whether the ranger was a peace officer or other public officer. This is also an element of violation of section 148(a), that the person resisted is a peace officer, public officer, or emergency medical technician.
• CL2 Page 2
  The Honorable Colleen Toy White June 22, 2007 Page 2 Peace officers include dozens of categories of individuals as defined in several lengthy sections of the Penal Code (sections 830-830.65). The applicable provision here is Penal Code section 830.31(b), which defines peace officers as including "[a] person designated by a local agency as a park ranger and regularly employed and paid in that capacity, if the primary duty of the officer is the protection of park and other property of the agency and the preservation of the peace therein." The most direct means of determining whether the ranger here met that definition was to ask the ranger. We have identified only six cases presented by the District to the District Attorney for prosecution from 2003 through the present. Given this small number, it is not surprising that the complaint review deputy did not have a copy of the ordinance in his office and did not know the legal status of the rangers. Once the District responded with the requested information, the District Attorney's Office accepted the case for prosecution. I want to make clear that the District Attorney's Office does not employ a different standard for prosecution of cases based on the size of the agency. The vast majority of our cases are presented to us by the Ventura County Sheriff, the cities' police departments, and the California Highway Patrol. But we also review and file cases from a number of smaller agencies such as the Ventura County Community College District Police, the California State University Channel Islands Police, the California State Park Rangers, the Bureau of Automotive Repair, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and the Department of Fish and Game, among others. We often request additional information or additional investigation from agencies of all sizes before making a filing decision. When we inquired about the District's ordinance and peace officer status before making a filing decision in the case discussed above, the questions were answered and the case was approved for filing. I believe that this process is appropriate and is not properly characterized as "difficulty" in obtaining a prosecution.

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