Basurto’s father served with Healdsburg PD
Carlos Basurto is a second-generation law enforcement and sheriff’s department officer who was born and raised in Healdsburg. His father joined HPD in 1971, and three years later moved to the county sheriff’s department. He has lived in Windsor for 22 years with his wife and two kids. His son, also named Carlos Basurto, has been recently hired by the Petaluma Police Department, making him the third generation (and third Carlos Basurto) to serve in law enforcement in Sonoma County. His brother Rey is also in law enforcement and is a sergeant with the sheriff’s department. Basurto has served in a wide variety of roles, but he says his primary focus has always been on his family and on the communities he serves.
He started his career as a student intern in the sheriff’s office in 1988, and since then has served as a patrol deputy at the Roseland Community Oriented Policing substation and in Windsor. He served on a joint FBI prison gang task force called Operation Black Widow, and then worked for the violent crimes and investigations unit. In 2006 he was promoted to sergeant and placed on the Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Team (MAGNET), and in 2009 he was placed in charge of the investigations bureau and promoted to lieutenant. He was selected as Windsor police chief in 2016. Some answers below have been edited for length.
Why did you decide to run for sheriff?
If I can do the same thing (I’ve done in Windsor) at a higher level, at a more significant level, then I am willing to do that. The position itself is not as important to me as what I can do with the position. To put it into simple terms, I want to rebuild that trust that has been lost or damaged with certain parts of our community and the sheriff’s department. I want the deputies to have an understanding of why we’re here, that it’s all about the community; and at the same time I want the community to be able to trust us and to know we are here for them. That it is about them and it doesn’t matter what race you are, what color you are, what your background is, the sheriff’s office is here for you and is here to serve you, not just protect you.
I was very humbled at the amount of encouragement I received from within the department, including the sheriff himself, but also within the community. My wife, if she would have said no, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. We do this as a team, we’ve been a team for 26 years now and it’s important that she be 100 percent on board with this, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it to me.
We took everybody’s encouragement and we weighed it with where we are in our lives, and in our careers and with our families and we prayed on it and came to the determination that if I can do some good for this county, if I can continue the long history of service my family has given to this county, then it’s worth it.
Why declare now?
It’s important for people to understand what your reasons for wanting to do this now, not later. There’s a lot of people who have the ability to do this job, but what I think is important are their reasons for wanting to do the job. I wanted my intentions known sooner rather than later, so people have an understanding as to why I want to do this.
What could the public expect with you as sheriff?
They can expect a sheriff that is going to be available, going to be honest. He’s going to have the integrity to do what’s right, regardless of your background, your history, your race, your politics. A sheriff who is going to do the right things for the right reasons. A sheriff who will be committed to community engagement and who is going to try involve his community in his decision making, but who will always put public safety first above all else because that is always our number one job. You can expect a sheriff who is going to be as transparent as he can possibly be.
When we talk about community engagement and we talk about serving everyone in the community, one thing I want to stress is that I want to do that in an equitable way. And what I mean by that is I want to be able to protect our most vulnerable in the community — our immigrants, our homeless, our mentally ill — but at the same time we have to understand that we need to hold some people accountable for their actions. And we still have to understand that within those communities, as with any community, there are those who are just bad and are going to commit crimes for one reason or another and we have to deal with them also.
What do you do in your spare time?
When I have spare time I’m an avid cyclist. I got into it a few years ago and it’s one of those addicting things you really get into. Apart from that I spend my time with my wife and my kids and my family. We’ve got a big family, a lot of family in Sonoma County and we like to spend time together. My cycling is my thing but I try not to get involved in too many other things that are gong to take me way from the family.
