SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - "Parks and Rec department rangers, they come out here and they see these sights, the environmental damages, and they've asked us to come and help them," said Sergeant Dan Flippo, Santa Cruz Police.
For the past 6 weeks Santa Cruz Police Officers have been doing just that. Hiking through the woods, to find illegal campsites. One after the other police encounter campsite after campsite, littered with old clothes, trash and even drugs.
During their 45 day campaign to clean up these sites police have issued over 200 hundred citations. The worst part is, once they get the campers to leave, the campers leave all the mess for the city to clean up, costing thousands.
"Parks and rec estimates it will cost $15,000 to clean up," said Sergeant Dan.
Aside from sanitary issues and drug use on these campsites, one campsite started a fire that quickly spread, threatening homes nearby.
Some of these campsites don't fall within city limits, but Sergeant Dan told me, campers may reside out of the city but cause trouble in the city.
"Yeah they may be down here at night but during the day they are in the city, causing calls for service of law enforcement and they are also affecting the community as a whole," said the Sergeant.
But their hard work is not going unnoticed, neighboring cities in Santa Cruz County are actually looking at how Santa Cruz is combating this issues to take back to their city.
