OCEANSIDE — The city has a new police chief with more than 20 years of local policing experience.
Oceanside Police Chief Kedrick Sadler officially assumed his new role on April 1 from Fred Armijo, who announced his retirement earlier this year.
Originally from Long Beach, Sadler first came to Oceanside as a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. He stuck around following his service and joined the Oceanside Police Department 22 years ago.
During his more than two decades as an Oceanside police officer, Sadler served as a patrol officer, canine handler, property crimes detective, homicide detective, patrol sergeant, Support Operations Division lieutenant, and more recently as captain overseeing the Investigations Division.
Sadler has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is currently working on a master’s degree in organizational leadership. He holds numerous peace officer standards and training certificates and is an involved member of the community, having served in various police liaison positions with local organizations. He also served as a member of the North San Diego County NAACP executive committee.
Outside of his duties as police chief, Sadler enjoys spending time with his wife, Melinda, and their five children, Justin, Jordan, Sierra, Jarred and Laila.
As chief, Sadler has four top priorities for the police department. His first priority is ensuring the mental, emotional and physical well-being of his staff, both sworn and civilian.
“We need to improve on taking care of our employees and making sure they are whole and well,” Sadler said.
His second priority is addressing the department’s staffing shortfalls by boosting its recruitment process as well as its retention efforts.
“Our staffing challenges have impacted the quality of our service,” Sadler said. “If we have fewer officers on the street, it decreases our ability to provide service.”
Sadler’s third priority is increasing the department’s engagement and involvement with the community, and his fourth priority is reducing violent crime – specifically gang-related.
“We had an increase this past year in gang-motivated violent crime,” Sadler said.
The new chief said much of the renewed gang violence stems from increased youth involvement in gangs. He hopes to work on more preventative measures that include reaching out to more youth before they get involved in gang activity.
OPD currently operates the Oceanside Youth Partnership program, a 16-week program that tasks police officers with mentoring at-risk youth to lead them away from crime and other poor choices. Sadler said the department has also been providing gang prevention training to schools, parents and other children.
Over the years, Sadler has watched the police department transform its practices to include more involvement and engagement within the community.
“We can’t arrest and cite our way to a safer community, so what we’ve focused on more over the years is working with stakeholders to address our community problems,” Sadler said. “That has been a big change for us.”
The use of technology and social media has also helped to improve the police department’s ability to reach out to community members and investigate crimes over the years, he noted.
Sadler wants the police department to become a regional leader in carrying out the six pillars of 21st-century policing. Those pillars are building trust and legitimacy with the community, policy and oversight, technology and social media leveraging, community policing and crime reduction, officer training and education, and officer safety and wellness.
“Those six pillars will become our standards of how we operate,” Sadler said. “I want our department to be a constitutional police department that respects everybody’s rights, that we provide people with respect and dignity, and to be leaders in those areas.”
Sadler expects his police staff to hold themselves accountable, follow the Constitution while policing, respect citizens’ rights and dignity, and be “positively impactful” on the community. At the same time, Sadler also hopes to have a positive impact on the department for future generations.
“Whenever I leave, my hope is that I would have been impactful and left Oceanside in a better position and on the path of success than it was when I got here for the next generations of officers,” Sadler said.
The city praised Sadler for his work in the police department so far.
“Chief Sadler is committed to advancing a department that values professionalism, transparency, community service and innovation,” said City Manager Jonathan Borrego in his announcement of Sadler’s appointment to chief.
Sadler has indeed remained committed to Oceanside over the last few decades. He highlighted the community’s general support and mutual respect it has with the department as one of the main reasons he has stayed for so long.
“Another thing I love about Oceanside is how we embrace diversity,” Sadler said. “If you look at the city’s vision and mission statement and its core values, each one mentions diversity, and I think that’s what makes our community so beautiful. There are different races, religions, people who grew up in different areas – it’s a melting pot of all these beautiful, diverse people and the city embraces that.”
The city thanked Armijo for his 29 years of service with OPD and congratulated him on his retirement.
