A recently retired Simi Valley detective has made some strong claims against Chief of Police Mike Lewis, saying the department’s leader refused the requests of federal agencies for assistance on national security cases.

Detective Paul Coambs, a 30year law enforcement veteran, served with the Simi Valley Police Department for 22 years. For nearly all of that time, he worked as the station’s sole criminal intelligence officer.

Now, two months into retirement, Coambs is bringing forward his issues with the chief regarding what he called the “degradation” of the department’s intelligence function.

“He ignored requests from outside agencies, federal agencies, who were requesting assistance, i.e. the intelligence officer, to assist them with investigations within the city of Simi Valley,” Coambs said in an interview with the Acorn .

The department’s Criminal Intelligence Section is responsible for the proactive collection, analysis and dissemination of criminal intelligence on the activities of organized crime groups, public disorder groups, terrorist groups and officials involved in public corruption.

First on Coambs’ list of issues is the merger of the intelligence function into the narcotics unit, a move Lewis made when he was hired as chief three years ago. Coambs said he argued against the consolidation at the time, saying the “stand-alone intelligence mission” would suffer because of it.

However, Lewis said it made more sense for Coambs to be in the narcotics unit and give them an additional person to work with.

“My observation was there wasn’t enough work, if you will, for an intelligence officer in a police department this size to do full time,” he said. “So as things were tightening, we were just trying to do more with less.”

Coambs insists that shortly after the police chief was hired in September 2006 Lewis was briefed by a member of the federal intelligence community who told him that terrorism-related persons were in Simi and “that there better be something done about it.”

Following that briefing, the FBI requested that the department assign the intelligence officer part-time to a new terrorism task force, a request Coambs said Lewis denied.

The former detective went on to say that in the last couple years, federal agencies requested the department’s assistance four times on national security cases targeting people living or working in Simi and that those requests were denied as well.

Lewis said he is not aware of which instances Coambs is referring to but said that such requests would be closely reviewed as to their benefit to the city.

City Manager Mike Sedell added that it is not the department’s responsibility to do the federal government’s work.

“Intelligence is one facet of overall law enforcement in Simi Valley, and the vast majority of the intelligence that is undertaken in the community is by federal agencies,” Sedell said. “That is their primary responsibility, not local government’s responsibility, for gathering intelligence particularly on international types of things such as (Coambs) is talking about.”

Mayor Paul Miller, who once served as Simi’s chief of police, agreed with Sedell that the chief would likely say no to a request if it meant taking officers off the streets and away from community policing.

“We just cut positions, too, in the city, so we don’t have anything to spare,” Miller said.

Coambs is also upset that the intelligence function is now a parttime, collateral assignment, which he said is inadequate.

What’s more, the function was recently moved out of narcotics and into the detectives unit, which he says is even worse because it doesn’t have the same surveillance capabilities as narcotics.

The chief did not put much merit in Coambs’ concerns, saying that they were coming from a disgruntled former employee who didn’t like the new direction the administration was taking with the intelligence function.

“Paul Coambs’ comments now and his sentiments are pretty much sour grapes . . . so now at this point, when he is retired from the agency, he is being critical of what took place over the past couple years or longer,” Lewis said.

He added that he believes the intelligence function has become more efficient and responsive.

“With him leaving, we’ve gone from what was one detective handling intelligence functions to four officers that are now crosstrained to do this,” he said. “So we have greater redundancy, and we have greater availability, and we have more people trained in this ability . . . so operationally it was a better thing to do.”

A cross-section of officers is receiving training through a Terrorism Liaison Officer program, and the department belongs to a regional clearinghouse of intelligence information, Lewis said.

Regardless, Coambs filed a written complaint about his issues with the department in May, but he said not much came of it. After he retired on Oct. 2, Coambs went to Miller with his concerns.

He said the mayor was shocked to learn the information. Miller said that’s not exactly accurate.

“(Intelligence) was his whole world, and I think he just thought there had to be more. Whatever it was, it was never enough,” the mayor said.

Coambs said he was hoping Miller would have the City Council make a statement that it is the policy of the department to cooperate with other agencies requesting assistance.

Instead, the mayor promised him a public staff report to the council on the intelligence function, which will happen in January or February.

Coambs said he didn’t bring his concerns to light sooner because he wanted the mayor to have the opportunity to rectify the situation.

He added that his motivation isn’t to further the cause of the Police Officers Association, though he agrees with the union’s no-confidence vote in the chief.

“The POA has nothing to do with this, and the truth of the matter is the chief is incompetent and he needs to be replaced. This is just more evidence,” he said. “My motivation to bring this up is to make sure the police department actively has an intelligence function that is working to the benefit of the citizens of Simi Valley and the residents of the county.”