A Violent Year Is Testing Simi Valley's Short-Handed Police Force. So Far, They're Passing.
A string of stabbings, attacks, and police shootings has made 2026 an unsettling year for Simi Valley. Despite being understaffed, the Simi Valley Police Department has done a great job catching suspects, making arrests in nearly every case.
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What's happening
Simi Valley has endured a run of high-profile violence this year: a strangling attack inside the Tierra Rejada Target, a man accused of trying to run down an officer, domestic stabbings on Clover and Magnolia streets, and two police shootings in 19 days.
The latest came shortly before 8 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, when a call reached the Simi Valley Police Department: a woman had been stabbed at a home in the 2200 block of Magnolia Street. The caller was the victim herself, who said her attacker was a man she knew. As officers arrived, the suspect sped off, crashed on Bigelow Avenue and fled on foot before being caught. Michael Fernandez, 32, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and DUI. The woman's injuries were not life-threatening.
One of the year's most widely covered cases began on May 27, when, prosecutors say, Frank Blessing, 58, rammed an SUV through the entrance of the closed Donut Plus on Erringer Road, then reversed into a patrol car, sped toward an officer and threw a knife at another. He is charged with the attempted murder of a peace officer.
Three weeks later, Rejean Tabor, 34, walked into the Target and, prosecutors say, began strangling a woman at a checkout counter before store security and shoppers pulled him away.
On July 2, officers found a husband and wife stabbed at a home on Clover Street. Police believe Luis Ramirez-Macias, 46, stabbed his wife and then himself. Hours later at Los Robles, the police said, he turned a broken medication vial into a blade and attacked the officer guarding him, who fired once. He survived, and the Ventura County Sheriff's Office is investigating the shooting.
Nineteen days later, a 37-year-old man suspected of domestic violence fled a home on Dusan Street after warning that he would "shoot it out" if officers were called, a police spokesman said. After a chase, he drove toward an officer and crashed into a parked police motorcycle. Officers opened fire, killing him. The state Justice Department is reviewing the shooting.
Taken together, the year's most serious cases fall into two patterns. The Target and doughnut-shop attacks were sudden outbursts against strangers in public places. The Clover, Dusan and Magnolia street cases began between people who knew each other, and two of them ended in police gunfire.
Meanwhile, the courts closed two older cases. Ramon Rivas was sentenced to 51 years to life for stabbing his girlfriend to death in 2024, and Gerardo Arroyo Almanza received 39 years and four months to life for fatally stabbing his father that year.
Why it matters
The city has long prided itself on being one of the safest places in the country, and the violence has arrived as the Police Department struggles to keep its ranks full. Last year, only 105 of 124 authorized officers were on the job, and commanders cut a detective position and pulled officers off proactive enforcement to cover the gaps.
Patrol Bureau Commander Bryan Samples told the City Council in April 2025 that the department had lost 16 officers to other agencies since 2020 and replaced only six, a drain he tied to pay that ran up to 22 percent below that of nearby departments. The dispatch center was short, too, with 13 of 17 positions filled; a supervisor called her colleagues "a hardworking but understaffed team."
The gap shows up plainly in the pay scales. In spring 2025, Simi Valley paid its officers $35.06 to $53.35 an hour, roughly $73,000 to $111,000 a year. Oxnard, the county's largest city, paid $43.04 to $63.87 an hour, about $89,500 to $132,900, or 20 to 23 percent more at each end of the scale. Simi Valley's starting trainee wage of $30.68 an hour also trailed Oxnard's $34.93. Ventura, a city of comparable size, now pays its officers $50.80 to $61.75 an hour, about $105,700 to $128,400 a year, according to an April 2026 job posting.
The Simi Valley City Council approved a new police contract in November 2025 that eliminated the three lowest steps of the officer pay scale. A recent recruitment posting now lists Simi Valley's trainee pay at $37.84 an hour, ahead of Oxnard's $34.93 and the roughly $34.62 Ventura pays academy trainees. Simi Valley has not published its current officer scale, however, so whether it has caught up with Ventura's is unclear, as is how much ground the department has regained in hiring; it is still advertising for officers.
The Big Picture
The official numbers do not yet show a crime surge yet. The department reported that crimes against persons fell about 3 percent in 2025, Ventura County remains the safest large county in California, and police have not announced a homicide in the city this year. A full accounting of 2026 will not arrive until next year. Property crimes fell about 13 percent last year and crimes against society, such as drug and weapons offenses, about 6 percent. A Ventura County Civic Alliance report ranked the county the safest of California's 16 largest, with 16.67 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2024. The surrounding region has been less uniform: in areas patrolled by the Sheriff's Office, aggravated-assault victims rose 26 percent in 2025, while the city of Ventura saw aggravated assaults fall about 8 percent even as crimes against persons overall rose nearly 13 percent.
Simi Valley's trend mirrors the state's. In July, Attorney General Rob Bonta reported that California's violent crime rate fell about 10 percent in 2025, to 431.1 per 100,000 residents, and that the homicide rate dropped to 3.5 per 100,000, a record low. Property crime fell about 14 percent.
Nationally, the decline has carried into this year. A Council on Criminal Justice study of large cities found homicides down 18 percent and robberies down 17 percent in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier. One category moved the other way: in the eight cities that report it, domestic violence rose 8 percent. The sample is small, but the trend echoes the domestic disputes behind several of Simi Valley's most serious cases this year.
The city's reputation for safety is also long-standing. Simi Valley was designated one of America's Safest City in 1996, and a 2023 county report found that its 2022 crime rate was lower still.
Even so, Shorts has cautioned that a decline "does not mean crime has been eliminated." And because the city averages about one homicide a year, according to The Los Angeles Times, a single case can sharply skew the numbers.
Conclusion: Winning The Competition for Officers
Whatever the final numbers show for 2026, the city's ability to respond to violent crime depends on filling its empty positions. That means competing with departments that pay their officers more for two kinds of hires: new recruits and experienced officers willing to transfer, known as laterals.
Many California cities have turned to cash. Ventura offers transferring officers a $10,000 signing bonus. Beverly Hills approved $15,000 bonuses for new recruits and $20,000 for laterals in 2022, paying them in installments tied to finishing the academy, probation and a second year on the job, and covering the cost with money already budgeted for vacant positions. Coronado is testing a two-year program that pays laterals $20,000, academy graduates $10,000 and current employees $2,000 for referring an officer who is hired. Torrance went further in 2024, offering up to $100,000 to laterals and $40,000 to new officers, plus annual retention bonuses for five years.
Others have focused on where officers live. San Diego launched a program offering officers up to $50,000 toward a down payment on a home in the city, aiming both to recruit and to get more officers living in the communities they patrol.
Simi Valley has started down this road with its new contract and higher trainee pay, and it can point to perks such as a schedule of four 10-hour shifts a week. The harder test is keeping officers once they are trained; Commander Samples tied the department's losses to pay, and Ventura's top officer wage still exceeds the top of Simi Valley's 2025 scale by more than $8 an hour. For a department that has made arrests in nearly every case this year with a thin roster, the question is whether the city can give it the people to keep up.
Simi Valley's 2026, Incident by Incident
Violent crimes the Simi Valley police announced or the news reported this year. Police do not publicize every case.
Jan. 23, Hibbert Court. Man fires shots into the air after a family argument.
Jan. 28, Tapo Street. Diners threatened with a knife at El Patio; bracelet taken.
Feb. 12, Cochran Street. Domestic violence suspect flees, crashes off the 118.
Feb. 15, Easy Street. Man hit with a slingshot, robbed of bike and backpack.
Feb. 21, Madera Road overpass. Man struck in the face with a chain and lock.
March 17, Yosemite Avenue. Man accused of trying to stab his girlfriend in the neck.
April 17, Desert Creek Avenue. Teen accused of beating his girlfriend, locking her in a closet.
April 18, Silver Fern Court. Loaded handgun allegedly pointed through a window.
April 26, Stearns Street. Gas station clerk grabbed by the neck, hit and robbed.
May 24, Adam Road. Man allegedly threatens to shoot someone during an argument.
May 27, Erringer Road. Doughnut-shop rampage; officer nearly run down.
June 10, Emeric Avenue. Watch taken by force during a Marketplace sale.
June 17, Tierra Rejada Road. Man accused of strangling attack on a Target shopper.
July 2, Clover Street. Wife stabbed; suspect later shot after attacking an officer.
July 21, Dusan Street. Domestic violence suspect killed by police after a chase.
Aug. 25, Keystone Street. Handgun allegedly pointed in a drone dispute.
Oct. 8, Magnolia Street. Woman stabbed by a man she knew.
The Simi Valley Ledger is an Official Publication of The Freedom Project © 2026
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