Holiday visitors seeking a quiet day off beside the water at Folsom State Recreation Area on July 5 instead had front-row seats to a police pursuit as park rangers chased an assault suspect through throngs of picnickers.
Officer Ryan Steele searches a suspect who was pulled over for reckless driving at Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach. (Manny Crisostomo / The Sacramento Bee)
It was like a scene from a big-city television crime drama. But this was a state park.
Crime is on the rise in California's state parks, up nearly threefold in the last decade, according to Department of Parks and Recreation data analyzed by The Sacramento Bee.
Last year, 62,575 crimes were reported in the parks -- or about 170 a day, compared with 65 a day in 1999 -- even as crime in the rest of the state declined. Even taking park use into account, crime last year reached record per-capita levels.
"It makes us feel vulnerable," said Floyd Oydegaard, owner of Columbia Booksellers, a business inside the Gold Rush-era Columbia State Historic Park near Sonora, which was hit hard last year by thieves and vandals. "It doesn't belong here."
Across the state parks system, crime is more common near water and in the eight off-road vehicle recreation parks. Both tend to draw large crowds and inherently risky activities.
Both elements come together at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area near Pismo Beach, which has by far the highest number of crimes -- nearly 6,000 in 2009. That is almost twice as many as the No. 2 crime hot spot, Lake Perris State Recreation Area near Riverside.
Millerton Lake State Recreation Area near Fresno ranks 34th out of California's 278 state parks in terms of crime-per-visitor, according to an analysis of state parks system data. Millerton is higher than any other Northern California lake park.
Rangers at Millerton have found themselves interacting with more gang members and parolees this year, especially after early releases of inmates began at the Fresno County jail. The rangers often spot identifying tattoos as they patrol the park, they say.
"Inner-city problems manifest out here," said supervising ranger Mark De Leon.
Up and down the state during the past year, park rangers have contended with:
"Car surfing" at Folsom Lake near Sacramento, where daredevil teens jump off a bridge from the roof of a moving vehicle into the lake below.
Grave-robbing at Tolowa Dunes State Park on the far North Coast, which left American Indian remains unearthed.
Illicit sex in parks -- especially south coast beach parks -- often solicited on Craigslist.
A mismatch of numbers plays a role. As crime increased and the department added a dozen new parks, ranger staffing levels remained flat and salaries did not keep pace with other law enforcement jobs. Nearly 30% of ranger positions now are vacant -- 131 out of 450, 18 more than a year ago.
"There are things going on in the park that we just can't catch," said Folsom park Superintendent Ted Jackson.
Trespassing in closed areas leads offenses
The most frequent state park crimes may appear benign but hint at a growing disregard for park rules.
Trespassing in closed areas is the most common, increasing about 20% last year. Failing to pay entry fees grew about 10%. Also in the top 10 were illegal camping and fishing, and vehicle-related violations such as parking illegally or driving in restricted areas.
Serious and violent crimes remain rare in parks, but they, too, are on the upswing. The parks saw 33 assaults in 1999; 87 last year. Resource crimes -- attacks on the parks themselves, such as vandalism, graffiti and tree cutting -- grew 17%, to 10,299 incidents.
An extreme case occurred in April at the remote Tolowa Dunes park in Del Norte County. Grave robbers entered the Yontocket Indian Memorial Cemetery to dig up treasures such as pottery and arrowheads. A $2,000 reward has been offered.
Marijuana cultivation in the parks also is increasing. In 2009, 35 incidents were reported, up from 30 the prior year and four in 1999.
When one plantation was busted in April in the rugged mountains of Malibu State Park, two armed men were arrested; one injured himself trying to get away.
"I think the entire system is teetering on the brink," said Richard Bergstresser, a former ranger at Humboldt Redwoods State Park and past president of the State Park Peace Officers Association.
"Job No. 1 should be boots on the ground: Protection of the parks. I feel we've moved away from that mission."
Department leaders say the statistics partly reflect improved policing techniques: Rangers are reporting problems they didn't previously notice or track.
On paper, Hearst San Simeon State Park, with 21 miles of coastline -- the most in the state system -- experienced one of the largest increases in crimes last year. But officials there blamed a procedural change: Now, a record is kept every time a ranger is called out, rather than logging only those calls that ended in a crime report or arrest.
No one, however, denies that ranger vacancies and attrition have undercut their vigilance.
"That's huge," said Karl Poppelreiter, the department's chief of enforcement. "We've had very competent people -- some of our shining stars -- who have left because they can make significantly more money and have significantly fewer pressures on them."
Last year's 7% uptick in crime probably is "not enough to notice" for most rangers, Poppelreiter said. But he is concerned that dealing with crime further erodes law enforcement's ability to educate visitors and correct a problem before it becomes a crime.
"Generally, everybody out there is feeling the crunch," he said.
San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area near Los Banos is a hotbed of boating-related accidents.
The park is short three rangers, and Superintendent Greg Martin said it has become difficult to do the kind of proactive enforcement that prevents such accidents.
In the past, "you might have been able to post someone up at the boat ramp full time, but right now we can't afford that," Martin said.
Today's rangers have the same training and enforcement powers as other law enforcement officers, but earn 20% to 50% less than city police or county sheriff's deputies. Add growing frustration with the realities of rangering and the gap becomes too wide for some to resist.
Bergstresser, for one, joined the Arcata Police Department in February after eight years as a state park ranger.
Locales can be magnets for dangerous behavior
Many parks seem to naturally attract potentially dangerous behavior, whether that means hiking a remote trail without a map or launching a Jet Ski off a boat's wake.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the state's eight off-road vehicle recreation parks, which have a per-capita rate of crime and safety incidents seven times above the average for other parks.
Common violations include speeding, failing to heed muffler requirements and riding in closed areas.
Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area may have turned the corner on off-road crime. The park near Pismo Beach has long led the state park system in total crime reports. But last year, crime there dropped 15%.
