New lieutenant at Carmel Valley Northwestern Division

By Karen Billing

Staff Writer

Carmel Valley’s San Diego Police Department Northwestern Division has yet another new lieutenant, Lt. Andrew Hoffman.

Hoffman has 25 years of experience in the police department and most recently worked in the Eastern and Mid-City Divisions. Hoffman is Carmel Valley’s third new lieutenant this year— former Lt. Todd Jarvis was reassigned in July. Jarvis took over for Lt. Jerry Mills in February and Mills had only been at the station for about a month.

“There’s been so much movement up here and that’s a source of frustration for the community,” said Hoffman, who noted that the division wants there to be stability as much as the community does.

There has been almost the same amount of changeover in the position of captain. In July, Captain Lori Luhnow took over for Captain Albert Guaderrama who was only in Carmel Valley for seven months after taking over for Captain Miguel Rosario.

After introducing himself at the Sept. 22 Carmel Valley Community Planning Board meeting, Hoffman gave a brief quarterly crime report. Hoffman said that violent crimes in the city are down 42 percent from the same quarter last year and vehicle thefts are down 50 percent.

There has been a 6 percent increase in commercial burglaries this quarter and Hoffman said a series of crimes were attributed to marijuana dispensaries, increasingly becoming targets of crime.

There has also has been a 33 percent increase in juvenile offenses — a significant amount attributed to an incident involving a party bus without parental supervision.