WOODLAND — Some kids dream of being firefighters. Others aspire to be cops.
Larry Cecchettini managed to do both.
But it was the law-enforcement side that ultimately won him over, comprising nearly three decades of his working life that ends today with his retirement from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s been a great ride,” Cecchettini, 53, said in a recent interview in his office at the Monroe Detention Center — also known as the Yolo County Jail — during his second stint as the jail’s commander. “At times a scary and gut-wrenching ride, but a great ride nonetheless.”
Cecchettini has received numerous promotions and accolades along the way, achieving his current rank of captain in 2005.
Sheriff Ed Prieto said Cecchettini’s departure represents “a tremendous loss” to the agency.
“He definitely will be missed. There’s nobody in the promotional ranks that has the background and the experience that he has,” Prieto said. “He’s always played an integral part in moving this organization forward into the 21st century.”
But he’s also strived to stay humble, keeping two rules of thumb in mind: Always do the right thing, even if it’s not easy or convenient, and remember that everyone plays a crucial role in the department’s success.
“There is nobody in this organization that’s any more important than anyone else,” Cecchettini said. “That’s what’s kept me here for 29 years, the way we do business.”
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Raised in Sacramento, Cecchettini spent the first leg of his career as a reserve firefighter for the Arcade Fire District, a job that fulfilled his childhood fascination with firefighters.
It was his purchase of a gun that ultimately turned the tables. Wanting to learn how to properly handle the weapon, Cecchettini took a firearms course, which also happened to be an introduction to law enforcement.
“I just instantly fell in love with it,” he said of the course, which taught arrest, search and seizure tactics. “In the fire service, you sit around the station, waiting for things to happen. In law enforcement, you could be more proactive.”
Upon completing the training, Cecchettini was eligible to become a reserve deputy sheriff, a role he assumed in 1986 under then-Yolo County Sheriff Rod Graham.
“Try not to get killed,” was the sage advice he got from the sheriff’s employee who issued him his service weapon and badge.
Cecchettini did his reserve work by day and attended the police academy on nights and weekends for 10 months, graduating first in his class in 1988 — the same year he joined the Sheriff’s Department full time.
His first assignment was in the courts, serving as bailiff to juvenile court Referee Lewis Shearer and later traffic court Commissioner Janene Yeates (now Superior Court Judge Janene Beronio). He transferred to the patrol unit after completing the department’s field training program.
At that time, Cecchettini often was just one of three deputies patrolling the 1,021-square-mile county at any given moment, and it could take as long as 20 minutes for backup to arrive.
Law enforcement tools deemed necessities now — dash cameras, in-car computers and Tasers — were years away from reality.
But the threat of danger was well established, like the night in 1992 that Cecchettini was shot at not once, but twice during the same shift.
The first was in Winters, when Cecchetini felt a bullet strike the rear fender of his patrol car as he drove past a housing project.
“It missed me by probably three feet,” he said. But a report of a barricaded man firing shots from a home near Woodland left little time to dwell on it.
Cecchettini immediately headed north to aid his fellow deputies, and “in their excitement they radioed the wrong way for me to drive in,” he recalled. The feeling of bullets whizzing past his head greeted him as he exited his patrol car, but he was able to take cover without being injured.
He risked his life again in 1993, when he spotted a Colusa County man — the subject of a be-on-the-lookout bulletin after holding his parents hostage throughout the day — exiting Interstate 5 near Dunnigan.
The suspect drove by Cecchettini’s patrol car, and Cecchettini followed him back to Colusa County, initiating a felony vehicle stop once backup arrived.
As Cecchettini aimed his rifle from behind his car door and another deputy approached the suspect’s vehicle from the right, the suspect picked up a handgun and pointed it at the officers. At that point, both deputies opened fire — marking Cecchettini’s first and only officer-involved shooting.
The suspect died at the scene, where officers recovered numerous firearms, knives and ammunition from his car.
“It’s always tough to think you’re part of something like that,” Cecchettini said. “But you do exactly as you’re trained to do.”
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Cecchettini’s rise up the ranks began with his promotion to sergeant in 1997, his assignments taking him to the investigations, court services, field operations, administrative and detention divisions. He’s also been the face of the sheriff’s office during several tours as public information officer.
“He’s always strived to be a leader, and I could always count on him to get things done,” Undersheriff Tom Lopez said, citing Cecchettini’s high productivity and attention to detail.
Asked about the most memorable cases that crossed his desk, Cecchettini quickly cites the November 1995 murder of Robert Fife, a San Jose resident who was killed in Clearlake, his body brought to Yolo County and set ablaze in his car.
It was one of three homicides to occur in 20 days in Yolo County that year, but would put Cecchettini on the road for 14 out of 30 days one month as he traveled from San Jose to Alturas in search of witnesses and suspects. Three people, including a relative of Fife’s, ultimately would be arrested for the crime.
His favorite assignment? The jail, where he first served as commander from 2007-2011 and again this past year.
While Cecchettini knew virtually nothing about the jail’s operations going in, “it was kind of invigorating, because it wasn’t the same thing I’d been doing for the past 20 years,” he said.
With 146 employees and a $14 million budget to oversee, the days could be long, “but I didn’t mind, because I was learning again,” he added.
“It’s not just a jail — it’s a whole correctional system. It’s like a city of its own here,” Cecchettini said. Newly passed measures like AB 109, which deemed that sentences for some felony crimes be served in county jails rather than state prison, brought additional challenges such as an influx of inmates who demonstrated a higher level of violence.
Proposition 47, which reduced some felony crimes to misdemeanors, helped create bed space at the jail, but also means “you only have the serious felonies that are in here, many of which present a danger to officer safety.”
Cecchettini observed that law enforcement has become an increasingly violent profession — something he and his colleagues experienced firsthand on June 15, 2008, with the shooting death of Deputy Jose “Tony” Diaz following a high-speed pursuit near Dunnigan.
Even now, nearly seven years later, Cecchettini chokes up when talking about Diaz, who became a deputy after working for Yolo County’s information technology division.
“He was like a friend when he worked for IT, and he became a family member when he came to work for the sheriff’s department. So when you get that call …” he says, pausing to compose himself, “you don’t ever want to get that call.”
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Cecchettini served under five sheriffs during his career — Graham, Gary Lipelt, Bob Martinez, Bart Simpson and Prieto.
Simpson “was the first sheriff that I could be around and not feel intimidated,” Cecchettini said. In addition to being approachable, Simpson offered Cecchettini his first promotion to sergeant, and “made me have enough faith that big things were in store.”
While Cecchettini and his colleagues were unsure of what to expect from Prieto — who came to the agency in 1998 as a retired California Highway Patrol commander — he’s credited with bringing “a new set of eyes, which created a vision, and we started going in directions we hadn’t gone before,” he said.
That included an emphasis on training and professionalism, the motto “Service Without Limitations” becoming the guideline for how employees performed their jobs.
“He encouraged us to live that — take every crime, every situation, every contact as far as you can take it,” Cecchettini said. “Now, we do it without thinking about it.”
While shoulder surgeries and arthritis have had Cecchettini contemplating retirement for several years now, he found himself rejuvenated in 2012 with his implementation of the “Below 100″ program — a campaign to curb officers’ on-duty vehicle crashes caused by excessive speed or lack of seatbelt use.
His inspiration was Kim Schlau, whose two teenage daughters were killed in a 2007 crash caused by a speeding Illinois state trooper, and whose story moved Cecchettini to tears at a 2012 training conference.
Since launching the program, the agency that averaged one collision a month hasn’t had one since Nov. 14, 2012, saving nearly $242,000 in crash-related costs and preventing untold injuries.
“Being able to implement that program here, and have the deputies buy off on it, it’s revitalized me,” Cecchettini said. “It’s obviously making a difference.”
It’s also captured widespread attention, having become a national model for safe police driving, and the National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial Foundation has deemed it the best law-enforcement traffic safety program in America.
Cecchettini will travel to Washington, D.C., next week to accept the foundation’s award, having just been there last week to present the “Below 100″ program at the prestigious FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va., which he attended in 2001.
“That’s a big highlight to end Larry’s career,” said Lopez, the undersheriff. “If it wasn’t for his energy and drive, that program probably would have stalled.”
Retirement will bring at least six months of rest and relaxation with his wife Paula and sons Andrew and Anthony, after which Cecchettini will decide whether pursue any less demanding work.
What he’ll miss the most, he said, will be his daily contacts with coworkers, whom he considers like family.
“The most important thing to me is that he treats everyone with respect,” said Caitlin Pitts, a court services clerk in the jail’s records division. “He always treated us like we bring something to the table and were valued, and I appreciate that.”
“I’ve always tried to treat people like they matter, because they do,” Cecchettini said. “I can literally say I love everybody that I work with.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
