photo credit: Santa Rosa Police Department 

The Santa Rosa Police Department says residents in immigrant communities are increasingly afraid of calling police and that could affect public safety for the city at large.

One example: on New Year’s Eve 2025, Marciana was walking through her neighborhood in Santa Rosa when she heard shouting coming from a house.

Marciana---who asked KRCB News not use her real name due to fear of federal immigration action---said her neighbors were fighting and yelling ugly things at each other. Her husband turned to her and said, “He’s hitting her. The man is hitting the woman. We need to call the police.”

She told him, no, they had to go. Not them. They couldn’t call the police.

Maricana said she wasn’t sure if the man was going to hurt the woman badly or worse, but she didn’t feel safe staying there or getting the police involved. So they left.

“I feel remorse,” Marciana said. “I could have reported it, but I didn’t feel safe.”

She didn’t feel safe for herself or for her neighbors, many of whom are undocumented.

Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan says he’s seeing this fear firsthand.

“In the last 18 months, you’ve seen a huge decrease in the trust,” Cregan said.

He said immigrant communities are becoming more afraid of police, believing officers are collaborating with ICE or even that they are ICE.

Cregan tells the story of a call Santa Rosa police received in January.

Some teens confronted another group along the Newhall bike path in South Park and a gun came out, he said.

As officers tried to secure the scene, neighbors started coming out of their homes yelling, “Hey, this is ICE. Get out here, why are you detaining them?”

He said the officers were stunned because they were wearing full Santa Rosa Police Department uniforms. But the crowd kept growing, and it affected the officers’ ability to stay in the area, Cregan said. Eventually, the officers left the scene and never found the gun, he said.

These aren’t simply anecdotal stories.

Cregan said last year’s statistics show an uptick in violence across the board. There were 12 homicides in 2025, compared with two the year before. Shootings spiked by about 6% last year. He worries people aren’t reporting incidents, meaning the true crime rate is likely higher and the violence could escalate.

“So many times it’s just a hair that separates it between an assault and it turning into a violent incident where someone dies,” Cregan said.

Cregan has been with the Santa Rosa Police Department for almost 30 years. He said the department has worked for decades to build trust in marginalized communities.

One moment he remembers as a milestone came in 2014, when he was a sergeant with the gang crimes team. His team threw a barbecue in a neighborhood experiencing a lot of shootings.

The police came in and served hot dogs and hamburgers. Cregan said some gang members even showed up.

“It was just the human side of like, ‘Hey let’s just have a hamburger together,’” he said. “I think it was a game-changer for that neighborhood of building some of the trust.”

Cregan said it’s hard to see that work erode. The impact on public safety is being felt beyond immigrant neighborhoods. It’s rippling into greater Santa Rosa — whether it’s shootings or sexual violence — because predators seize on opportunities where trust in local law enforcement is low and victims and witnesses are too afraid to call police, he said.

Cregan said he wants to make it clear that if someone reports a crime, Santa Rosa police officers won’t ask about immigration status.

“Everybody should feel like, I can call the Santa Rosa Police Department and I’m going to get treated with the same dignity, respect that anyone else in our community is treated with,” he said.

Editor's Note: To see more of our reporting on trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, visit our Immigration News tab.