From a teenage ride-along with Fresno police, to the department’s Explorer program, to officer, and now chief, Mindy Casto is a Fresno success story. Even though Casto’s goal was not to become the chief of police, she is ready to take on the job with plans to continue keeping Fresno safe.

Casto was sworn on Feb. 28 as Fresno’s first female police chief. A Fresno County native, she has spent her career rising through the department’s ranks, serving as deputy chief before being named interim chief in June 2024 following the resignation of former Chief Paco Balderrama.

During her swearing-in, Casto emphasized her dedication to professionalism, community service, and public safety. And, reflecting on her early experiences, she reaffirmed her commitment to strengthening internal department culture and relationships with the community.

“This community has been very good to me, and I want to make sure I’m giving back to them the best that I can,” Casto said. “And that’s how I plan to lead this department. With the community at the center and that’s what we’re going to continue to do through our enforcement efforts, through our engagement efforts, and through our public trust efforts.”

Priorities for the Department Moving Forward

Now officially sworn in, the chief is focusing on improving service levels while maintaining Fresno’s recent reductions in violent crime.

“What we do really well are emergencies and violent crime, and we’ve been able to reduce that quite a bit,” she said. However, response times to non-emergency calls remain a challenge, sometimes exceeding two or three hours.

She aims to balance crime reduction with quality-of-life concerns, ensuring that property crimes like vehicle burglaries are also addressed.

To tackle these issues, the department is leveraging grants and technology. A new organized retail theft grant allows for 26 personnel to be assigned to property crimes, including auto theft.

“We have two teams working auto theft full time, and so we’ve been able to seriously impact those numbers. That impacts … somebody who’s just trying to work and doesn’t have a lot of money or resources,” she said.

In addition, leveraging technology such as AI report writing helps officers be efficient with their time. “We are looking at about 20 minutes per report right now, but we’re still barely nibbling on the edges of those time savings because we’re still only handling lower level reports,” she said. “(We) will continue to raise the level of the kind of reports they take, and then we’ll start to save even more time.”

Strengthening the Community Through Engagement

The chief believes effective community engagement starts from the top.

“Leadership — people tend to follow more of what they see than just what they hear,” she said. She emphasized the importance of setting a positive example, from herself down to captains, lieutenants, and sergeants.

Casto said that when she recently promoted five new sergeants, she talked to them at length about being a good example and making sure they know how the department expects them to treat people.

Despite common perceptions, the chief noted that Fresno’s high-crime areas often express the most appreciation for law enforcement.

“We get more thank-you’s and appreciation from the areas that have traditionally struggled with crime issues or violent crime than probably anywhere else in the city,” she said.

The department collaborates with community groups like Advance Peace, which works independently to prevent violence without providing information to police.

“We have established a lot of relationships and professional understandings amongst the community that we’re here to do a job. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Fresno Police Department’s Role in Immigration Enforcement

When asked about the department’s collaboration with federal law enforcement, the chief emphasized that Fresno police do not enforce federal immigration laws.

Casto says SB 54 and the department are well aligned, making it very clear where the department stands.

SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, limits the cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bill, which became law in 2018, ensures that no state and local resources can be used in federal immigration enforcement including schools and courthouses.

The chief said that the department’s focus is arresting criminals to make the city safer. “We don’t ask immigration status, whether it’s legal or illegal. If you’re violating the law in Fresno and its a statute that we have jurisdiction over, then you’re going to be arrested.”

A Commitment to Accountability Amid Departmental Missteps

In June 2024, ex-police chief Paco Balderrama was surrounded by scandal, leading to his resignation and for Casto to then become the interim chief.

Casto emphasized the department’s commitment to accountability and transparency.

While ensuring officers feel supported in their roles, Casto stressed the importance of maintaining high standards. She highlighted the department’s practices, including random audits of body-worn cameras and the importance of leadership modeling proper conduct.

She also said that even though these guardrails exist, she continues the conversation with officers about proper and improper actions.

Casto also discussed the balance of transparency, noting that public disclosure of misconduct investigations can sometimes conflict with officers’ due process rights. To address this, an independent auditor provides quarterly reports on departmental issues.

She explained that during investigations, especially those involving serious misconduct, sharing too much information prematurely could undermine the process and jeopardize officers’ rights to a fair investigation.

“It’s like threading a needle, because I want to be as transparent as I can with a lot of investigations” she said. “We can try to share as much as we can but there’s sometimes, if it’s very serious misconduct, there could be a criminal investigation.”

The chief noted that when serious misconduct occurs, two separate investigations — one criminal and one administrative — take place, which complicates the department’s ability to provide full transparency.

However, she reiterated the department’s commitment to responding to misconduct fairly and maintaining high standards.

“We have 1,300 employees. There are problems. But to me, what’s important is how do we respond to them,” she said. “We conduct these investigations, and then some people just aren’t going to be qualified to work here anymore. Others, they go through discipline and they’re able to be rehabilitated back to being a better officer than they were before.”

Message to Women Aspiring to Leadership

Casto offered this advice to women aspiring to leadership roles. “Work hard because people will misjudge you for many things, whether you’re smart, whether you’re nice, whether you’re whatever, good looking, it doesn’t matter. But one thing people rarely get wrong is your work ethic and how hard you work.”

She added that what helped her get to the top is she would never ask anyone to do something she wasn’t willing to do. “If you say something, you should follow through with that. I think I just been able to build some trust amongst the personnel here in the department and along with the community.”

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