October Newsletter: Making District 7 Safer
Public safety remains one of my highest priorities for District 7. Our residents, families, and businesses deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods, and that means more than talking about crime. It means putting resources where they are needed, taking dangerous offenders off our streets, and changing how we police our community so officers can respond faster and more effectively.
16 Suspects Arrested in Major Public Safety Operations
Working with the San José Police Department, we have seen significant enforcement efforts targeting violent and gang related crime affecting our community.
In two major investigations, SJPD arrested a total of 16 suspects accused of serious crimes.
One investigation began after a brutal gang related attack outside a business on Seven Trees Boulevard, where a victim was beaten unconscious and suffered life threatening injuries. SJPD’s Gang Investigations Unit ultimately identified eight suspects connected to that attack and other violent incidents, including another assault and a firearm brandishing case.
Read more about this SJPD investigation and arrests.
A separate SJPD investigation resulted in eight additional arrests as officers continued targeting serious criminal activity affecting San José neighborhoods.
Read more about the second SJPD investigation and arrests.
According to our Police Captains, removing these 16 suspects from our streets has already had a significant impact in District 7. They are seeing a noticeable improvement in public safety, and these arrests are already helping make our neighborhoods safer.
Through coordinated investigations and multi agency enforcement operations, these suspects were identified, located, and arrested.
Getting individuals accused of violent crimes off our streets is an important part of making our neighborhoods safer. I want to thank our SJPD officers, detectives, and partnering law enforcement agencies for their work investigating these cases and holding those responsible accountable.
More Police Resources for District 7
We are also making a major change to how police resources are deployed throughout San José.
For more than 25 years, San José operated under essentially the same patrol district structure, even as our population, neighborhoods, calls for service, and police staffing changed dramatically.
That structure placed a particularly heavy burden on District 7.
Police District Lincoln, which covers a significant portion of District 7, has been the busiest police district in San José. Its mean priority call volume has been approximately 50% higher than the citywide median.
That means our officers have been asked to handle significantly more priority calls than officers serving many other parts of San José.
That is changing.
Under SJPD’s new patrol district redesign, boundaries and staffing are being rebalanced based on actual workload and calls for service. The redesigned Lincoln District is projected to move from approximately 50% above the citywide median workload to approximately 2% below the median.
That is a major shift in police resources toward the communities that need them.
Learn more about SJPD’s Patrol District Redesign.
Fewer Boundaries Between Officers and Emergencies
The changes go beyond drawing new lines on a map.
SJPD is moving away from the old system where officers were generally assigned to smaller individual police beats. Under the new model, officers will be available throughout their larger patrol district.
The goal is simple: get the closest available officer to the person who needs help.
The new system will also create larger patrol teams with dedicated supervision, balance calls for service more evenly, and allow officers to become familiar with the entire district they serve.
For District 7, these changes should mean more consistent police coverage, better use of available officers, and fewer situations where our neighborhoods are competing for limited resources within an overloaded patrol district.
A New Police Structure for District 7
District 7 will also no longer fall primarily within SJPD’s Western Division.
Under the new boundaries, approximately half of District 7 will be served by the Southern Division, about 40% by the Central Division, and roughly 10% by the Foothill Division.
That means our office will now work closely with three police division leadership teams: Captain Payne in Southern Division, Captain Scherry in Central Division, and Captain Aragon in Foothill Division.
Our responsibility will be to make sure those new boundaries translate into better service on the ground. We will continue working directly with SJPD leadership on problem locations, neighborhood concerns, gang activity, illegal dumping, businesses experiencing repeated crime, and other quality of life and public safety issues throughout District 7.
The new patrol district structure is expected to take effect in early to mid-November 2026.
I want to take a moment to give a huge thank you to Captain Donohue, our former Southern Division Commander, and his entire team for the tremendous amount of work they have put into spearheading this redistricting effort.
This has been a significant undertaking, requiring countless hours of analysis, community meetings, planning, coordination, and discussion about how we can better deploy our officers and serve our neighborhoods. Their commitment to taking a hard look at the way our patrol resources are structured and finding ways to better align those resources with the needs of our communities deserves our sincere appreciation.
Continuing the Work
There is no single solution to public safety.
It takes enforcement. It takes adequate staffing. It takes smart deployment of the officers we already have. And it takes an ongoing partnership between our neighborhoods, businesses, City Hall, and the San José Police Department.
We are making real changes to how District 7 is policed, bringing resources closer to the communities experiencing the greatest demand, and continuing to support targeted operations against violent crime. There is more work to do, and I will continue pushing to make District 7 and all of San José safer.
We have amazing police officers in our city, and we have the best police department in the country. Much love and respect goes out to all of our San José Police Department officers. Thank you for your service, your sacrifice, and your commitment to protecting our residents, our families, our businesses, and our communities every single day.