Behind The Wheels Of The 30 Beat

Diana James, a 50-year-old transient, refuses to seek help at any of the Coachella Valley’s homeless shelters.

“I’ve been there and done that with shelters,’’ James said. “They will only help the people they want to.’’

James, who says she went to Indio High School, chooses to remain on the streets despite the urging of Deputy Mike Vasquez, a member of the ’s Business District Team, who sees it as his job to keep tabs on transients like James.

“You’d rather live on the street?” Vasquez asked James while serving her with a trespassing citation for loitering in an alcove of a business near El Paseo.

“If the system worked for me, I would do it,’’ James quipped back, adding that she has social anxieties and other disabilities that make it difficult for her to keep a job. She has lived on the streets with her husband for the past four years.

“The streets is where we ended up,’’ James said.

Vasquez and James know each other well. That’s mostly because Vasquez has made it part of his daily routine to check up on the local homeless, much to the ire of James.

“It’s hell when the cops know you by your first name,’’ she said. “I love it and hate it.’’

Vasquez works the 30-beat, which spans from the Rancho Mirage border to the west, Deep Canyon Road to the east, Fred Waring to the north and Shadow Mountain Drive to the south.

He often encourages the area’s homeless to seek help, but there is a small group that does not want assistance, forcing him to ticket them for trespassing and other petty crimes.

“I try to be as nice about it as I can,’’ Vasquez said, referring to the vandalism citation he had just given James.

The deputy says there were 10 to 15 regular transients that lived in and around his beat when he started. Now there are about five who refuse to go to local shelters to get their lives back on track.

“We chat a couple times a day,’’ he said.

Building relationships with the homeless, local business owners and residents is at the core of Vasquez’s strategy in keeping El Paseo and the rest of his beat crime free.

“They put super talkative people in these positions,’’ Vasquez said, adding that he grew up in Rancho Cucamonga and has been with the department for five years.

He works closely with business owners, talking with many of them nearly every day.

His strategy has been put to the test this month as Palm Desert has seen six burglaries along the high end shopping district since January and several violent robberies.

That includes a carjacking and assault that left a Canadian paraplegic man hospitalized.

“I think with El Paseo especially, the crimes are product driven,’’ he said. “El Paseo attracts high end retailers.”

Vasquez has been working crazy hours of late to catch these criminals – sometimes shifts that span from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m.

But it’s paying off. A tip he got from a source might be panning out and he believes his team is on the verge of cracking the burglaries.

“Instinct is everything. I got a good tip from a three minute conversation that has lead into a multitude of other leads,’’ Vasquez said. “You listen extra hard.’’

He said he got a bunch of dead ends when the Palm Desert City Council offered a $10,000 reward for an arrest and conviction in the El Paseo burglaries. But it was while he was on the 30 beat that he finally got a good lead.

In addition to relationship building, the deputy said he often patrols the area to reassure retailers and keep away thieves.

“We’re out here in force whether they see us or not,’’ Vasquez said.

*Palm Desert contracts with the sheriff's department for its policing services.