Google “Chris Ortega APD” and see what comes up. After the first dozen results that announce his ascension to head of the Arcata Police Department, what pops up is a never-ending series of press releases, news articles, and videos that catalogue crime after crime after crime that he commented on. Seemingly every human sin has an entry in the lineup. 

Of course Ortega has seen plenty of lawlessness; he’s been an officer since 2005. But his experience with the subject runs deeper than simple resume material.

Ortega, 47, was sworn in last week as APD’s Chief of Police after sharing the position with the former chief Bart Silvers for the last three months. He’s held a lot of roles for the APD over the last 20 years, becoming a sergeant in 2016 and a lieutenant in 2024. He’s been on the Drug Task Force, the Major Crimes Task Force, and the Sexual Assault Response Team. He’s also worked as a detective and a background investigator.

Ortega wound up in Humboldt when he was restoring streams and doing trail work for the California Conservation Corps in the late ‘90s. Fresh off of a Greyhound from the Imperial Valley, he was struck by the beauty of the forest. Near the end of his career with the CCC, while supervising a crew in the Headwaters Forest Reserve, he thought about how he’d never again be able to enjoy an office like that one. He was outside, and he was mobile. 

It was a long way from growing up impoverished in El Centro. Gangs roved through his neighborhood and fought constantly. Thieves broke into his childhood home several times — he once watched his mother use a baseball bat to fend off someone trying to jimmy open a window. She called the police. The authorities never found the burglar, but a young Ortega was impressed by their ability to act as a group and their willingness to show up to a stranger’s house and risk themselves defending them. 

“And as a child, that’s formative,” Ortega told the Outpost. “And I’m looking at people that are doing this. They’re in uniform, they’re cohesive, they’re a team. They look like me. And I’m just like, ‘I want to do that. I want to be able to do that for somebody else.’”

Dealing with budget problems, California laid off CCC members in 2004. Ortega wanted some stability and decided it was time to go into law enforcement. It ended up being similar to restoration work, with its physicality, its mental challenges, its variety. He was still outside no matter the weather; he still had a team to work with. 

The importance of the team cannot be overstated. 

“Your community is asking you to risk your health, to risk your safety, to risk your family’s well-being,” Ortega said. “The community is asking you to do this for 20 to 30 years. You’re going into volatile situations. You’re there because the situation is already out of control, and you’re showing up with a group of people that you have to be very tight with in order to navigate these things.”

“I have probably hundreds of stories of that very dynamic taking place, but I’m focusing on the dynamic itself,” he continued. “What keeps me in this profession, what keeps us in this profession, is that camaraderie that you have when you have skin in the game and you’re out there trying to better the community.”

Pinning down what Arcata wants from APD isn’t always easy. Generally, Ortega said people want relief from the quality of life issues that breed nuisances like public intoxication, fighting, and shoplifting; he said he heard an “outcry” for a safer community. 

Combatting fears about the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign is part of that. Ortega takes it seriously. APD has been working with Centro del Pueblo to connect law enforcement with community members, answering their questions and assuaging their fears. 

Ortega, himself a Spanish speaker, was praised by Arcata’s mayor Kimberley White when his selection was announced in October. She told a story about a town hall meeting this year about Arcata’s status as a sanctuary city. Ortega spoke with a woman who didn’t speak much English; she started crying. 

“At first, I was like, ‘Uh oh.’ And then I realized that these were tears of relief and happiness,” White said. “Because she knew during these tumultuous times that she can depend — and we can all depend — on Lieutenant Ortega.”

A few other people took the opportunity to praise Ortega effusively at the meeting for his empathy when they needed him. 

Outreach is high on Ortega’s list of priorities; he plans on hiring an engagement specialist. The more he was promoted, the less he got outside and met people, one of his favorite parts of the job. Ortega thinks it important to make frequent face-to-face contact with people, making sure they know they all share common ground and values. Taking an occasional walk around the plaza or in Valley West scratches that itch and lets him strengthen the bond between Arcata and the department. 

It can be a tenuous one. Over the summer, pro-homeless advocates for campers living on private property picketed garbage cleanups. There was no way APD was going to let them stay. The owner requested APD’s help removing them, and so for almost six months officers and homeless services providers spread the word that they’d have to go eventually. The conflict boiled over into raucous city council meetings and protests over encampment sweeps that weren’t happening. 

Ortega attributes the disconnect to simple ignorance of the situation; APD, of course, must enforce trespassing laws if they’re asked to. 

He does not plan on directing officers to fine every broken taillight; it’s not worth upsetting and inconveniencing residents just to nab the occasional fine. The culture Ortega’s cultivating for his officers is, he hopes, something that will keep new hires there. Making people feel like they’re valued, like they’re part of an organization and a community worth belonging to has been important for Ortega and the last few chiefs.

“I encourage our [officers] to engage in servant leadership where they’re leading by example,” Ortega said. “If we’re having problems in a certain area of town that are going to require our officers to go and make contacts, potentially make arrests, potentially get into foot pursuits and potentially have to fight people, [then] I want our I want our officers to have skin in that game.”

The APD has struggled with staffing in the past (they’ve consistently been a few people down for a few years), but in about a year all of their officers-in-training will be finished and ready to work. A $50,000 bonus to attract laterally transferred officers doesn’t hurt either. 

Balancing the needs of the department and Arcata’s needs is difficult, he said, but it’s important to remember that everyone involved in the dance between the authorities and the community is a human being. 

“I’m going to listen before I act,” Ortega said. “I’m going to support our people while holding ourselves to the highest professional standards, and I’m going to work hard every day to earn our community’s trust.”