Cathedral City Swears In Rick Sanchez as New Police Chief
PUBLIC SAFETY — Nearly 20-year department veteran becomes the first Latino to lead the Cathedral City Police Department.
Cathedral City has a new police chief — but not a newcomer.
Rick Sanchez, a nearly 20-year veteran of the Cathedral City Police Department, was formally sworn in Tuesday, September 8, at City Hall, taking over leadership of the department after serving as acting chief since the retirement of former Chief George Crum in December 2025. Sanchez becomes the first Latino police chief in Cathedral City history.
The appointment represents both continuity and a milestone for a city with a Latino-majority population. Rather than bringing in an outsider, Cathedral City selected an officer who has spent virtually his entire law-enforcement career serving the community he will now lead.
Sanchez joined the department as a police officer in 2006 and steadily worked his way through the ranks. His assignments have included patrol, graffiti and gang enforcement, investigations, field training and SWAT. He spent 13 years with Desert Regional SWAT, including service as a team leader, and later supervised patrol, detectives and professional standards. Before becoming acting chief, Sanchez served as deputy chief overseeing the department’s Operations, Investigation and Support bureaus.
That history was not enough by itself to win him the job. Cathedral City conducted a national recruitment effort and solicited input from residents through an English- and Spanish-language community survey. An interview panel included community leaders, nonprofit representatives and law-enforcement professionals from throughout the region. City Manager Andrew Firestine ultimately selected Sanchez from the competitive process.
Firestine said the city discovered during the search that “the leader our community was looking for had been part of our team all along.”
The formal swearing-in ceremony drew city officials, law-enforcement leaders and residents to the City Council chambers. Mayor Raymond Gregory said Sanchez’s promotion was something he had earned, noting both his rise through the department and the historic significance of naming Cathedral City’s first Latino chief.
Technology — With Transparency
Sanchez takes over a department with approximately 81.5 sworn and professional employees serving more than 52,000 residents. His stated priorities include public trust, accountability, professionalism, innovation and stronger community partnerships.
Technology is also expected to play an increasingly important role.
Following his swearing-in, Sanchez pointed to the department’s drone first-responder program as an example of how technology can improve police efficiency and public safety. Cathedral City also uses technology such as license-plate cameras, an area that has generated privacy concerns in many communities.
Sanchez acknowledged that new policing technology requires safeguards.
“Technology... you need to be responsible with it,” he told KESQ, emphasizing training, supervision, auditing and transparency.
That may become one of the defining issues of his tenure: how a modern police department uses rapidly developing surveillance and response technology while maintaining public confidence and appropriate oversight.
A Chief Who Came Up Through the Ranks
Sanchez holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership from California Coast University and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from California State University, San Bernardino. He has also completed several advanced law-enforcement leadership and management programs.
But perhaps the most unusual part of his résumé is its Cathedral City focus.
Sanchez said after Tuesday's ceremony that he is the first Cathedral City police chief who began at the department's ground level and subsequently worked his way through its ranks to the top job.
That gives the new chief something an outside hire could not have brought: nearly two decades of institutional knowledge, relationships with officers and residents, and firsthand experience with the changes Cathedral City has undergone.
It also raises expectations.
Sanchez inherits responsibility not simply for maintaining the department but for determining what comes next — from staffing and officer recruitment to technology, transparency, neighborhood policing and the relationship between residents and those charged with protecting them.
For Cathedral City, the selection is both historic and decidedly homegrown.
After a nationwide search, the city's next police chief was already here.
