The City of La Quinta has contracted with the Riverside County Sheriff's Office to provide the La Quinta Police Department with five Community Service Officers (C.S.O.'s).

Community Service Officers, working under general supervision, perform the most responsible law enforcement support duties involving a variety of civil and criminal issues that do not require the authority of a sworn law enforcement officer. However, their duties have a high factor of responsibility, liability, and criticality.

Duties of the Community Service Officer include tasks such as the following:

1. Investigate and complete criminal reports where there is no known direct suspect information. Crimes such as burglary, vehicle burglary, vehicle theft or recovery, petty theft, grand theft or vandalism would be investigated by a C.S.O. Collecting and processing fingerprints or other physical evidence is a typical C.S.O. responsibility.
2. Investigate and complete a traffic collision report for non-injury collisions.
3. Provide traffic and crowd control at traffic collisions, crime scenes, or major community events.
4. Issue citations for California Vehicle Code and La Quinta Municipal Code violations such as illegal parking, expired registration, and unauthorized handicap parking.
5. Assist deputies by transporting an individual to jail following an arrest by the deputy.

The position and the function of the Community Service Officer provides a very cost effective method that allows the sworn deputy to remain available to respond to more serious and urgent calls for service.

Currently, Community Service Officers are assigned to serve as the Community Program Coordinator, Business District C.S.O., Traffic Services C.S.O., and Uniformed Patrol C.S.O.