Sheriff
’s Office offers number of services at SM substation
n a small portable building in San Martin, better known as the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office substation, there is a skilled group of deputies and office staff providing a wide variety of services to the community.
Newly assigned Lt. Larry Lopez, a 27-year veteran, wants people in Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy to know that these services are available.
“We want to make sure the public knows what we have to offer,” Lopez said. “Sometimes, people don’t even realize we’re located here.”
The substation is located at 12431 Monterey Highway in the complex with the South County branch of the District Attorney’s office and the superior court facility off Highland Avenue.
The city of Morgan Hill and Santa Clara County are working together to build a new courthouse, to be located at the corner of E. Dunne Avenue and Butterfield Boulevard. The former facility was forced to close due to massive mold problems, and portables have housed county workers since.
When Lopez was assigned to the substation, he wanted to make sure the public knew what services were available.
The program Lopez appears most proud of is Lifescan, the computerized fingerprint program that drastically reduces wait time for results. School districts and other employees requiring fingerprinting as a part of the application process can send prospective employees to Lopez’s office, and neither the applicant nor the employer will have to wait the traditional six months.
Results can be obtained in up to 72 hours.
Officer Lorraine Quinonez, who came to San Martin from San Jose, as Lopez did, wrote the protocol for Lifescan.
“When you compare what it used to take – up to six months – to what we can do now, it’s just a wonderful improvement,” she said.
It’s not only the response time that’s a plus for the system, Quinonez said. She likes the fact that it is user-friendly, that training is not difficult and that if a mistake is made, it is easily and quickly corrected.
Lopez, who came to the substation June 30, is also proud of the office’s search and rescue work. Two canine “officers” and their handlers assist other law enforcement agencies in locating suspects but are also used for rescue situations.
“They (dogs an their handlers) are highly trained and experienced,” he said. “This just gives us another dimension, something more we have to offer.”
The substation is also the place to visit if you have tickets to take care of, including tickets from other law enforcement agencies, said Lopez.
“If you have a warrant under $5,000, we can help you obtain a court date and clear the warrant,” he said. “We can also do ticket sign-offs for some violations and take bail here, and take registration updates for narcotics and sex offenders.”
Another service Lopez’s office provides to the community is providing access to a list of registered sex offenders and their addresses, under Megan’s Law. Community members do not need appointments to come look at the list; anytime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., residents can come in and look at the CD. It is possible to search, Lopez said, by zip code, by name and by address.
The crime situations that he deals with at the substation are not very different from what he experienced while in San Jose, he said.
“This community is growing,” he said. “I don’t see any significant differences. You have domestic, you have drugs. We do have a rural crimes deputy, and if we are searching for someone, the area is a little more wide open than in San Jose, but other than that, human nature is human nature.”
Lopez said the community does have the gangs that people tend to think of as more “big city.”
“Unfortunately, we have some gang problems,” he said. “Many times, kids choose to affiliate themselves with a gangs, whether or not they are actually in the gang … But we try to support the schools in the area and provide a strong presence to discourage gang activity or affiliation.”
