How does the city of San Diego keep its citizens safe? It may seem like a simple question, but there’s more to it than many may think.

The San Diego Police Department works 24 hours a day to keep the city’s more than one million citizens out of harm’s way.

According to San Diego’s Police Department website, its mission is “to maintain peace and order by providing the highest quality police service.”

San Diego Police Officer Jesse Rippy said citizens primarily benefit from police by preserving life, but also by protecting the general welfare and quality of civilian life by investigating crimes and performing basic first aide before medics arrive at a scene.

The San Diego Police Department is made up of forty different units, each with a specific purpose to serve the city. The units range from air support to canine to special investigations and more.

The San Diego Police Department patrol area encompasses the city’s coastline from the Mexican-American border north to Del Mar. In addition, the area extends east to areas including San Pasqual, Lake Murray and Otay Ranch.

According to the SDPD’s website, “ In addition to the full-service headquarters building the City is represented by nine area commands, divided into 19 service areas, policing 122 neighborhoods.”

Each of the nine “area commands” has it’s own police department, which officers are assigned to.

An officer’s daily routine first includes “loading” the patrol car and then receiving vital updates in the line-up room, Rippy said.

“The line room is a formal or informal briefing of events that have been going on for the days we’ve been off, either in the community or in the police department,” Rippy said. “It gives us ideas of what to look out for.”

Next, officers head out into the neighborhood to do proactive policing until a radio call comes in, Rippy said.

Proactive policing is watching people for criminal activity, Rippy said.

“Certain types of criminals will often do things differently than people around them,” Rippy said. “Say everyone is walking in one direction and there is one guy stopped in the crowd watching one particular person, that’s something that you might want to investigate further.”

According to Rippy, a large problem that the police department faces is some of the public having an “anti-police” attitude.

Civilians either have a pro-police or anti-police stance, and it’s really difficult to reach across the anti-police stance because the misconception that cops are bad is passed down from parents to children, Rippy said.

“Policing works best when people want to improve the community,” Rippy said.

The SDPD website offers ways for citizens to engage in community oriented policing, or citizens handling non-emergency situations on their own. The website sites examples such as joining a Neighborhood Watch program, Citizen Patrol group and filling out forms to report crimes for the police to investigate including embezzlement, abandoned vehicles and financial crimes.

For more information on the SDPD and to find the closest police department in your neighborhood, please visit http://www.sandiego.gov/police.