Veteran Poway detective calls it a career

A Poway sheriff’s detective who played an integral role in the Chelsea King case is retiring this week.

Chris Johnson is a 28-year law enforcement veteran who spent the last 18 years at the Poway station.

While he said working with juvenile offenders has been his real passion, Johnson’s highest-profile case involved being the enforcement liaion for the King family following Chelsea’s abudction and murder in 2010.

“I stayed with them 20 hours a day for the first 10 days,” said Johnson. “I brought them to get briefings and to court.”

Johnson said his responsibilities as the liaison was to communicate with the family and get them away from the media. “I made them feel safe. They were victimized enough already. (A liaison) gives the victim’s family someone to trust.”

He was also the official source of information to the family.

Johnson said the hardest moment was telling Brent King, Chelsea’s father, that her body had been found.

“Brent King had come to me and asked me to tell him about Chelsea ahead of (the rest of the family) so he could be strong for them,” said Johnson. “I had to find a few minutes to tell him away from the family. How do you tell someone something like that?”

Johnson said the Chelsea King murder was “new ground” for the Poway sheriff’s station and he was very proud of how the station handled the case.

The Kings have been invited to Johnson’s retirement party on June 10.

Johnson came to Poway from Michigan, where he worked in jails and did several years in patrol. “I did everything from surveillance to drug busts to protection detail,” he recalled.

Throughout it all, Johnson has worked with juvenile offenders, his real passion. As a juvenile detective, Johnson was responsible for kids who were arrested and not sent to juvenile hall and he made the decision whether they would go to a diversion program, receive probation or be sent for prosecution. “It’s a lot of responsibility,” said Johnson.

Johnson said that what he liked best about working with juvenile offenders was that he could see changes in the person through his intervention. “You make a difference in juveniles,” he said. “You don’t see that arresting a drug dealer over and over.”

Part of Johnson’s work with the Sheriff’s Department as a deputy was creating a diversion program for juvenile offenders that helped keep kids out of the juvenile system, he said.

He created a traffic diversion program that, instead of sending traffic tickets for teens on to the court system, has the teens doing community service and receiving education. He had to work with judges for the program, and Johnson said the judges were “less than receptive” to the idea at first, until one finally called the diversion program a great idea and overrode the other judges.

Johnson also worked with missing children, runaways and abducted kids, which he said was his top duty as a deputy.

Johnson said he plans to continue working with juveniles even after retirement. He will continue his work with Best Buddies, helping fund raise for the group’s annual prom, and is considering helping the sheriff with the STAR/PAL program, which works to empower under-served youth by engaging with law enforcement.

He also plans to stay in Poway. “It’s rare that someone stays as long as I did in my position, but I knew this is where I wanted to be. I raised my kids here, I coached Little League and Pop Warner here. I’ve been in Poway probably longer than any other deputy that’s been assigned here.”