Category: kesq-local-news

Gavin Nguyen

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. (KESQ) – Cathedral City officially swore in its newest police chief, Rick Sanchez, Tuesday evening at City Hall.

Sanchez had served as the acting chief since the retirement of former Chief George Crum in December 2025. He is the first Latino to lead the department. He’s a nearly 20-year veteran with the department having joined the department in 2006.

The ceremony filled Cathedral City’s council chambers with city leaders, top law enforcement officials from across the valley, and residents of the city.

“I think it’s great,” said Sandra Martinez, one of the residents in attendance. “Having the first Latino chief is great for the community. It sounds like he’s going to represent the community really well.”

It was a months-long process to find the right person for the job. Mayor Raymond Gregory added, “We needed someone that could hit the ground running that could, you know, keep control of the police department, be accountable and transparent to the public. And we think we have the right man.”

Mayor Gregory said while home-grown, the position wasn’t handed to Sanchez just because of his history with the department. He said he earned it – and with that, he’s made the city proud.

“This was something that was earned. But to be able to find someone inside the ranks,” the mayor said. “Our first Latino chief, a chief that came up through the ranks… it’s a really proud day for Cathedral City.”

In August, News Channel 3 spoke exclusively with the incoming chief. He outlined his goals, including a commitment to public trust, collaboration, accountability and community-oriented policing.

We followed up with the chief on those goals after the ceremony. He led our crews on a walkthrough of the station, giving us an inside look.

Newly sworn-in Chief Rick Sanchez surveys his department’s vehicle fleet

When asked about where he plans to steer the department next, he replied, “Continue to move forward. We need to embrace technology to see how it can help our job be a little more efficient. Our drone first responder program has been a tremendous help not only to our department, but to the other departments as well in our city.”

Some of these new technologies, like license plate cameras, have received public pushback in recent weeks. He made it clear that he was prioritizing being transparent and educating the community about the tech.

“Technology… you need to be responsible with it,” Chief Sanchez affirmed. “There has to be the training, the supervision, the auditing and the transparency in place to share with the residents as to why the technology is needed, how it benefits them and the department and how there’s some type of oversight to protect people from this using it.”

The chief was quick to offer a chance for our cameras to peek into the brains of the department: the dispatch center. Like other departments in the valley, this is where it controls its drone program and safety cameras. The personnel inside said the technology they’re leveraging is helping boost safety for both officers and the public.

“Do you think you’re going to give tours just like this to members of the public, if they want it?” we asked Chief Sanchez after he finished showing us around.

“We would hope so, especially once we get more drone operators,” he teased.

While there’s no concrete timeline for getting station tours running for Cathedral City residents, he said it’s certainly in the cards as more personnel, like drone operators, are hired.

As chief, Sanchez now oversees a department with 81.5 sworn and professional employees serving more than 52,000 residents. He said he plans to build on the department’s existing foundation while emphasizing professionalism, transparency, innovation and community partnerships.

Our walk with Rick ended on the top floor of the station, feet away from the Chief’s Office. Hanging on the wall were the portraits of the chiefs that came before him. With a proud look in his eye, Sanchez said, “I am the first one in the Cathedral City Police Department to actually have started here from the ground level and worked my way up and promoted throughout the ranks, which is definitely a tremendous honor and privilege for me.”

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Tommy Gallegos

PALM SPRINGS, CA (KESQ) – Palm Springs residents will have another chance to see how the city’s police department uses real-time technology, this time on a Saturday.

The Palm Springs Police Department is bringing back its community tours of the Real Time Intelligence Center (RTIC) on Saturday, September 26, following feedback from residents who said they were interested in attending previous tours but couldn’t make it during the workweek.

The department will offer three tour sessions throughout the day at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Each session will be limited to 25 participants, and advance registration is required.

The RTIC tours are intended to give community members a behind-the-scenes look at the technology and systems, such as FLOCK cameras, available to Palm Springs police, while also providing an opportunity to learn about the safeguards surrounding their use.

During the guided experience, participants will see demonstrations of some of the technology used by the department, walk through a real-world scenario and learn how information is used to help support public safety operations.

The department also plans to discuss the policies and safeguards governing the RTIC, including access controls, audits, oversight and privacy protections. As automated license plate readers continue to face scrutiny locally and nationwide, Palm Springs Police has told KESQ that regardless of whether information originates from Flock or another technology, human verification remains a necessary part of the investigative process.

All three sessions will have limited capacity, with 25 participants allowed per session.

Residents interested in attending can register online and selecting one of the available tour times.

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Garrett Hottle

SKY VALLEY, Calif. (KESQ) Bobbee McGuire never went to Ground Zero. Ground Zero came to her, one roll of film at a time.

In September 2001, McGuire was an assistant manager at an Eckerd drugstore on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie, New York, about 80 miles north of the World Trade Center. She also ran the store’s one-hour photo lab.

On the morning of Sept. 11, she says, her store manager sent her home early because colleges across the Hudson Valley, including the Culinary Institute of America, where her husband was a student, were locking down. She called her mother and asked her to turn on the news.

“I just stood there looking at the TV like, did I just really see that?” she said.

The next morning, McGuire arrived to open the store and found military trucks in the parking lot. The men inside were New York Guard volunteers, members of the state’s unpaid defense force, on their way to the World Trade Center site.

“They literally took every little shopping cart that we had,” she said. “Cases of water, bottles of water, any type of first aid supplies, gauze, bandages, you name it. They really cleared out my store.”

When they came to the register, she refused to ring them up.

“I said, I can’t charge you. There’s so many more people down there that need it more than we do,” McGuire said. “One of my newer employees was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to get fired.’ And I went, well, I guess if I do, it’s for a good reason.”

She wasn’t fired. Her district manager, she says, had nine stores on the east side of the Hudson start over-ordering supplies and trucking the extra to her location. For weeks, the drugstore became a resupply point, with volunteers eventually arriving in big rigs to haul donations south.

On the return trips, they brought her their film.

“The sergeant in charge said, some of these are very graphic and we only want one person in charge of processing the film,” McGuire said. “And he said, I want you to be that person.”

About 25 volunteers dropped off two or three rolls each every other day, she says. She estimates more than 40,000 images of the site passed through her lab, most of which have never been seen publicly.

“I would sit for hours, even sometimes after my shift was over, processing rolls of film,” she said. “I saw things that nobody should ever have to see or experience.”

The volunteers offered to let her keep one print. She chose a photograph of the flag-raising at Ground Zero, an image she says was taken moments after the famous photograph by The Record’s Thomas E. Franklin that became the “Heroes of 2001” postage stamp. She was told, she says, that the frame she picked would probably never be published.

Her binder also holds photos of a relief fundraiser the store organized about two weeks after the attacks, with Poughkeepsie police fingerprinting children for identification cards, Culinary Institute students running the grills and a table collecting donations for the Red Cross. One of the children fingerprinted that day was her daughter, Amanda, then a year old.

“The only reason she remembers is because I have pictures and I have stories,” McGuire said.

A framed photograph on her wall, signed by the unit, thanks “the Eckerd’s staff” from “Task Force Poughkeepsie, Disaster Relief, 4th Bde, N.Y. Guard.” The New York Guard was mobilized after the attacks in what the state’s Division of Military and Naval Affairs called its largest activation since World War I.

Friday marks the 25th anniversary. For the first time, the ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will include a permanent seventh moment of silence for those who have died of 9/11-related illnesses, a toll the museum says now exceeds 9,000.

McGuire thinks about the men who came through her store.

“I don’t even know if their health has been affected,” she said. “It would be nice to know.”

The Eckerd chain no longer exists. Its New York stores became Rite Aids in 2007, and the Poughkeepsie location closed last year in Rite Aid’s liquidation. McGuire moved to Arizona in 2003 and now lives in Sky Valley.

She has hung the photographs in every home since.

“I had somebody ask me, why would you put pictures up of something so horrific?” she said. “And I said, because I think it’s important that we remember.”

Asked what she would say to the volunteers today, she didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll always be eternally grateful that you chose my store to stop at,” she said. “I wish I remembered all of their names.”

Local 9/11 ceremonies Friday include the Cathedral City Fire Department remembrance at 8:15 a.m. at Fire Station 1, the Palm Springs Fire Department ceremony at 8:30 a.m. at Fire Station 2, and the dedication of Indio’s new 9/11 memorial, built around a steel beam from the World Trade Center, at 9 a.m. at Miles Avenue Park.

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Raymond Kalra

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) – A longtime emergency shelter for troubled and at-risk youth in the Coachella Valley is closed, raising questions about what resources remain for young people who need mental health support or simply a safe place to go.

Safe House of the Desert in Thousand Palms provided emergency shelter and support services for youth ages 11 to 17. Operation SafeHouse has said the location closed because of insufficient funding. Its Riverside facility remains open and avaliable.

News Channel 3 made multiple attempts Tuesday to contact Operation SafeHouse seeking additional information about the closure, what resources are currently being provided to Coachella Valley youth and whether there are plans to restore shelter services in the eastern part of Riverside County. Those requests were not returned as of Tuesday evening.

What happens if a young person needs help now?

The closure does not mean mental and behavioral health resources are unavailable in the Coachella Valley, but local law enforcement says those resources do not necessarily fill the same role as a youth shelter.

Palm Springs Police Public Information Officer Capt. Gustavo Araiza said the department works with its Community Behavioral Assessment Team, or CBAT, when officers encounter someone experiencing a behavioral health crisis.

The program pairs an officer with a clinician connected to Riverside University Health System. The team can assess someone’s needs and work to connect that person with appropriate county services.

Araiza said the program was developed to serve the broader community, while Safe House served a more specific need for young people.

“This safe house was pretty specific to addressing the need for the youth. But we just thought as a community we needed that for everybody,” Araiza said.

Araiza said one potential gap involves young people who do not want to return home or are considered runaways.

“I think one of the gaps that we have, and it might not necessarily be on the mental health side, but it very well could kind of teeter in that area, is the individual that doesn’t want to go home and is now a runaway,” Araiza said. “So kind of having a safe haven for them to go to, because that’s one of the things that we did have in the past.”

988 offers another option during a mental health crisis

For someone experiencing a mental or behavioral health crisis, another resource is the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Rebecca Zeitlin, Crisis Lines Clinical Director at Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center, said 988 is available to people of any age and is not limited to people considering suicide.

“So 988 is a great resource when someone’s experiencing either a mental health, emotional, substance use crisis or in need of support, intervention or help figuring out what to do,” Zeitlin said. “But we want to remind folks that you don’t have to wait for a situation to become an emergency.”

People can call or text 988 to reach a live crisis counselor. Zeitlin said counselors can listen to what is happening, assess safety and work with the caller to determine appropriate next steps.

The service can also help someone who is concerned about a friend, child or family member and doesn’t know how to approach the situation.

Zeitlin said one misconception is that contacting 988 automatically results in a law enforcement response. She said that is not the case.

For situations requiring an immediate in-person response because of a medical or other emergency, 911 remains the appropriate number to call.

For emotional, mental health, substance use or suicidal crises, 988 can provide crisis support around the clock.

“Nobody has to deal with that alone,” Zeitlin said.

Questions remain about youth shelter services

While 988 and local behavioral health teams can provide crisis intervention and connections to care, those services are different from the emergency shelter once available to youth at Safe House of the Desert.

News Channel 3 is continuing to seek answers from Operation SafeHouse about the closure of its Thousand Palms facility, its current services for Coachella Valley youth, and whether there are plans to restore a youth emergency shelter in the area.

Operation SafeHouse continues to operate a location in Riverside.

News Channel 3 will update this story if Operation SafeHouse responds

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Jesus Reyes

COACHELLA VALLEY, Calif. (KESQ) – Friday marks 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks. There will be several remembrance ceremonies throughout the Coachella Valley.

Cathedral City Fire Department 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony – 8:15 a.m. at Cathedral City Fire Station 1, 6895 Buddy Rogers Drive Fire Chief Michael A. Contreras will lead the ceremony. The community will observe a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. and a second at 9:03 a.m., marking the moments American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 struck the North and South Towers. The ceremony concludes following the second moment of silence. City of Indio’s 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony – 9 a.m. at Miles Avenue Park The city will be unveiling the new Indio 9/11 Memorial, a permanent tribute featuring a 12-foot steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center La Quinta 9/11 Candlelight Vigil – 7 p.m. – Civic Center Park The community is invited to come together in remembrance, reflection and unity as we honor the heroes, first responders and all those whose lives were forever changed by the events of September 11, 2001 Palm Springs Fire Department 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony – 8:30 a.m at Palm Springs Fire Station 2, 300 North El Cielo Road The Palm Springs Fire Department invites the community to join in a solemn tribute to the Heroes of 9/11 during the annual Never Forget 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony Annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb At Morongo Resort – 8 AM to 1 PM Paying tribute to the fallen 343 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice on September 11, 2001, the participants will climb the stairwells inside the 27-story Morongo resort tower to three times to simulate the 2,200 steps that the fallen heroes ascended in the Twin Towers Every step at the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb will help raise funds for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, which provides vital support, such as grief counseling, peer networks, financial assistance, and scholarships to the families of fallen firefighters. The event aims to raise over $10,000

If you know of any other remembrance events taking place in or near the Coachella Valley, send information to our email: share@KESQ.com

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City News Service

IDYLLWILD, Calif. (KESQ) – A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle today on state Route 243 near North Circle Drive in Idyllwild, though traffic remained open through the area.

The incident was reported to the California Highway Patrol at 10:22 a.m. Monday.

Further details regarding the pedestrian’s condition were not immediately available.

The vehicle involved was identified as a blue Mazda SUV, according to a CHP traffic incident log.

The collision occurred outside active travel lanes, leaving traffic unaffected.

Cal Fire was notified and dispatched to provide emergency medical assistance.

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Jesus Reyes

Palm Springs, Calif. (KESQ) – Four people were arrested at a DUI checkpoint in Palm Springs over the weekend, police announced.

The checkpoint was held Friday night to early Saturday morning at East Tahquitz Canyon Way and South Hermosa Drive. A total of 320 vehicles were contacted, police said.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of a DUI, one person was arrested on felony drug charges, and one person was arrested for driving on a suspended license.

An additional driver was cited for driving without a driver’s license.

Police said DUI checkpoint locations are determined based on reported incidents of impaired driving-related crashes. The primary purpose of DUI checkpoints is to promote public safety by taking suspected impaired drivers off roads.

The next DUI checkpoint will be held on September 18, 2026.

Funding for this checkpoint was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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Jesus Reyes

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) – A 34-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to his wife’s death earlier this year in Twentynine Palms.

Isaac Matthew Angel pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter last Tuesday, court records show.

Angel was arrested in connection with the death of Jessica Nicole Phillips, 34, who was found dead inside her garage at her home on the 74900 block of Aladdin Drive on March 13.

Authorities were originally called to the home for a vehicle check after a Toyota Tacoma was parked at the location, blocking a gate at the fire department on the 6500 block of Adobe Road. During their investigation, deputies were led to the residence on Aladdin Drive, where two unsupervised children were located.

A search of the house led to the discovery of Phillips, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Nearly two hours after the vehicle check, deputies located the children’s father, Angel, walking near the intersection of Sunrise Drive and Araby Avenue.

“Through the course of the investigation, detectives determined Angel was responsible for Phillips’ death, and he was arrested for murder,” reads a news release by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in March.

Details on the investigation were not available.

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Gavin Nguyen

THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) – This Monday, September 7th marks more than just Labor Day; it’s National Beer Lover’s Day, too!

As you relax for the holiday, you might be reaching into your fridge for an ice-cold beer. It’s the world’s most consumed alcoholic drink.

There’s a number of breweries around the valley perfecting their craft beer. To name a few: La Quinta Brewing Company, Luchador Brewing Company, Desert Beer Company, and Coachella Valley Brewing Company.

CV Brewing Co. first opened its doors in 2013. Its main hub is in Thousand Palms, but it also has a Palm Springs restaurant and taproom in downtown Palm Springs.

“For me, every day is a day to celebrate beer,” said manager Wesley Gainey with a chuckle. “If you want to celebrate a beer, go buy local, get adventurous and take some chances.”

Gainey said each batch they brew typically produces 20 barrels. It takes about 700 pounds of grains.

The brewing process takes about three weeks, the bulk of which comes from fermenting. Before that step, though, are several rounds of boiling, mixing, separating, and breaking down grains and sugars. Coachella Valley uses a unique “high-efficiency brewing system” – or H.E.B.S. – which helps the brewery be more sustainable. It says on its website it reduces water use by 60% and uses 65% less grain.

The waste products that are created are given to local farms to be used as animal feed. More information on sustainable brewing can be found here.

Between the various moving parts, Gainey estimated it’s a multi-million dollar undertaking. Still, he called it a labor of love. “When [customers] are out there at the store or deciding where to go, you know, [or they’re] right here chugging along, we’re making good stuff,” he said, pointing at the operation.

He encouraged more people to get out and try more of their local craft breweries.

“Aside from, you know, you’re supporting local, you also tend to get a wider variety of flavors and different opportunities that you can get with with independent beers.”

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