Desert Magazine: Where did you grow up?
Chief Andy Mills: I grew up in the Midwest in a small farming town … called Quincy, Michigan. The town was 1,000 people, so it wasn't exactly a metropolis. My dad was a pastor. We had a church and a basketball gym 24/7 [at] our disposal. [It was a] great way to grow up in a really small, rural, family-oriented community with a lot of great people.
Desert Magazine: Did you always plan to make policing your career?
Mills: From a pretty young age, I wanted to be a cop. I went on a ride-along with a guy named Allen Stout. He was an Indiana state trooper. Allen took me out and showed me how to drive fast and chase people and all that kind of thing. It was exciting and fun. Even as a young kid, I can remember standing up in the back seat of Dad's car, watching the Michigan State Police cars go by with their single red light on top and thinking, “Wow, that's pretty sharp.” So, it's always been in my blood. I'm really, by nature, a competitive person. And so, to me, policing is just another level of competition.
Desert Magazine: I've never heard it described that way.
Mills: You have to exercise your will over the person that you're opposing. And so, if somebody's going to try to get over on a society that I'm responsible for guarding, it's my responsibility to figure out a way to get them in custody. And so, it becomes a matter of whose will is strongest.
Desert Magazine: Where did you start your career?
Mills: [I] started in Michigan in a little town, in Coldwater, as a marine deputy. I drove a boat in ’77 … and had hair down to my shoulders (because it was the ’70s) and a puka shell necklace. And I was a marine deputy driving around writing tickets to people for going too fast in the No Wake Zones, and then asking all the girls on the lake to pull me with their Ski Nautiques and that kind of thing. So, I did two things the entire summer – skied and scuba dived. At the end of the summer, it's like, “Why'd you quit that job, exactly?”
Desert Magazine: How did you make the move out to California?
Mills: [I] went back to school, finished, and met my wife (who was from California) in the meantime and thought, “Okay. Well, I have a choice – Michigan or California.” I got on San Diego PD in 1983. [I spent] a little bit over 30 years in total in San Diego, going through the ranks and reaching the rank of captain. As a commanding officer, I was responsible for gang investigations citywide. And then, [I] went from there to Criminal Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, where we did a lot of cartel operations. And then, [I] found some success in taking down the Tijuana Cartel and doing some pretty impactful things with joint task forces. I got promoted to captain, where I had Western Division, which is … North Park to Ocean Beach, Point Loma down to the airport and Mission Hills, Hillcrest, [and] Linda Vista. So, it was [a] pretty big swath of land and people. We had a large LGBTQ community in Hillcrest. I found out what it was like to lead in a city very much like the demographics of Palm Springs.
Desert Magazine: How’d you make the jump to chief of police?
Mills: I didn't want to retire. I wound up going to Eureka, California, as chief for four years and loved the area, loved the people. And it was spectacular from the standpoint that we were able to have a house that butted up to 22,000 acres of forest land and bear and deer and fox and pine marten in our yard. But, it was just too isolated for us and a little chilly; it never got above 55 degrees. And so, Kathy and I knew it was time to go elsewhere, and I got recruited to go down to Santa Cruz. I was there for four years – a little bit over. And [it was] a beach community, [a] lovely place, but [there were] very different politics and demographics there.
Desert Magazine: I think maybe Santa Cruz and Eureka have one thing in common: they both have sizable alternative lifestyle, anti-establishment viewpoints. What kind of challenges did that present for you?
Mills: It's interesting because they're similar in some ways and very dissimilar in other ways. In Eureka, for instance, that is real old money. It's the old fishing [and] logging industry. [It’s] very conservative, salt of the earth people, great people. And then, you've got the enormous marijuana industry. I mean, by all accounts, [it’s] probably a $3-billion-a-year industry. That was pretty tough to govern in many ways because the money reaches the highest levels of government there. Some of these cartels were going up to farmers and saying, “We're buying your farm.” And they're like, “No, I really enjoy my farm. It's a hobby for me” kind of thing. [And then the cartels would say,] “No, you don't understand. It's not an option. Here's $20 million; you're leaving today.” And we heard a lot of stories like that.
So, you have all those dynamics going on up there that were just super interesting. But then, as you commented, you had this very strong anarchist, anti-government culture that permeates the county. That was the trend up there … hatred for government [and] hatred for the police. But, the other side of the community, both liberal and conservative, were very supportive and wanted the police and understood that the police had a job to do.
Desert Magazine: What attracted you to the position in Palm Springs?
Mills: It was interesting because you get all those bulletins from jobs that are open from the recruiters; they'll give you calls. And [the Palm Springs posting] was sent to me by the recruiter [and] I threw it away. A month after it closed, the recruiter called me and said, “Hey, we have your resume and we would actually like to have the city take a look at it.” I told my wife about it, and we had a house in San Diego at the time and Kathy said, “Let's just stop at Palm Springs. It's probably been 20 years since we've been there.” So, we came up to Palm Springs for the weekend. It was in August [and it seemed like] 250 degrees. But, it was popping. [It] was completely full. We walked around town. I thought, “Man, this is something else.” Kathy says it was like the scene out of “Love Actually” at the Heathrow Airport where everybody's hugging and so happy to see one another. I went back, thought about it, and called the recruiter and said, "You're welcome to give my resume to the city.” And then, it just opened up, and here we are.
Desert Magazine: I think you started a community outreach program earlier this year. What was the impetus to do that?
Mills: I want to make sure that I'm policing from the perspective of the community. I really wanted to know what their thoughts are. The second thing is, I really believe in transparency [and] that people need to be able to look at the same data I see, and be able to take a look at that data to help them be informed and make the best decisions possible. So, we took all that information, went to seven community meetings throughout the city and said, “Look, here's the information we have. You tell me what your priorities are.” And what came out as the top priority? Homelessness, homelessness, homelessness. I knew that for the public to have confidence in government, we needed to really try to have an impact on homelessness. I just felt that I needed to shoulder the burden … and said that we're going to move forward and here's what we're going to do. And I think the result was fantastic. We went from around 500 homeless [people] to where we're at right now – probably under 100.
Desert Magazine: What are some of the steps that you took?
Mills: Well, one was [that] we needed to identify how many homeless people we had and what was the context of the problem. My guys went out on a pretty consistent basis and counted almost 500 over a six-month period. Now, some of that's transient in nature. But still, it's an impact on the city. We also talk [about] what their names [and] date[s] of birth [are], where they're from, [and] what their issues were. And many people tell you, “Well, the homeless is about ... 30 [or] 40% substance abusers.” And so, I told my guys that that's what research shows. They're like, “No way, Chief.” And I said, “Well, you go out and find out.” [It’s] 90%.
Desert Magazine: And what was your approach to reducing that number?
Mills: What we were able to establish was a very high incident of drug use. So, we went to everybody and begged them, on body-worn camera, [to] take resources. [We said,] “Here’s a flyer. Call this number. Try to get the help you need that you can use to get off the street. Here's how you can get housing. Here's how you can do all these things.” We identified the four biggest hotspot locations where the homeless were congregating and causing the most trouble. We also identified the top 30 “problem children” – those who were causing us the most calls for service. And then, we sent people home to other parts of the world. We [helped] about 90 get housing. You start doing the enforcement and about a third of them say, “This isn't fun anymore.”
It's based on a criminogenic theory called leverage deterrence, where you try to find out what you can leverage to gain the behaviors that you need to be in line with society. I know if 90% of them are substance abusers, they don't want to go without the substance. So, how do I ensure that they're going to do what we want them to do as a society? By leveraging that substance abuse against them. And so, if they go to jail every day, they're now getting dope-sick. If you're going to get dope-sick every day, you're going to say, "I need to get help” or “I'm going to go somewhere else.” That's the theory we operated under. And so far, it's worked.
Desert Magazine: I think you posted a video of an incident you were involved in at a downtown Starbucks in April. I think you made the video in support of Proposition 36.
Mills: I was sitting [and] having coffee with (local author) J.D. Horn. And this guy came up and he was asking for money from people. He wasn't homeless, he was just … I don't know what his issues were. And he asked a couple of guys walking by, and they said, “No, we're not going to give you money.” (The man cursed at them, using homophobic terms that are not printable.) And I thought, “Okay. This is going to be a problem. I'm going to watch him for a few more seconds and see what he does.” And then, five minutes later, [he] comes back, walks inside, opens his backpack, and just takes stuff off the counter and puts it in his backpack. And a guy who was inside comes out and says, “Hey, can you help me with this?” He doesn't know I'm the chief. I'm looking at him like, “You came to the oldest guy out here in the patio, and you're asking …" So, I said, “Yeah, yeah. I saw it. I'll go and deal with it.”
I walked inside and he's now walking past the register, so he's completed the crime. I said, “Dude, just put the backpack down; we'll be good. You're not taking this stuff.” And he goes, “Yeah, I am.” And he goes to walk past me, so I grabbed his arm. I said, “Look, you're not leaving with this stuff. Just put it down. We'll call it a day.” And then, he started turning to try to hit me. That's why I had his arm, so I just kept moving him in a direction where he couldn't get a swing at me. And I thought, “Okay. That's enough of this." That's when you saw in the video [that] I spun him and took him to the ground and then arrested him for robbery because you're stealing with force and [also] for elder abuse, because I'm 67. He actually pled guilty.
Desert Magazine: Chief, I've got to say, you still have some lead in your blood.
Mills: I love a good challenge. Now also, I'm not stupid. I mean, if that was a six-[foot]-four-[inch] 290-pound parolee with muscles coming out of his ears, I probably wouldn't have grabbed him by the arm. I'd probably been [sic] a good witness and taken a photo and said, “Hey, get the younger guys to fight this guy.”
Desert Magazine: Recently, you had 250,000 people show up for Pride weekend. You've got a small department. How do you deal with that?
Mills: I cannot tell you how hard our department works. I've never seen anything like it, and I came from a big agency with a lot of really good freaking cops. These folks here do it constantly. We go from Coachella, Stagecoach, [and] white parties [to] flash house. I can't count how many events that we do. My hat's off to the folks here who … just are diehard. [They say,] “Chief … I’ll stand on this roof for 12 hours with the rifle doing over-watch on Arenas just to make sure our LGBTQ community is safe. I'll walk in the crowd with a backpack with an assault rifle just to be the close-quarter combat person in case something touches off. And I'll do without complaining.” I'm very proud of the work ethic of this police department.
