In Sunnyvale’s one-stop public safety shop, even the cops haul hoses and put out fires

IN SUNNYVALE, THE police are tasked with law enforcement as they would be anywhere else, but they are also prepared to wield a fire hose against conflagration, insert breathing tubes on a person with blocked airways and even deliver babies if the need arises.

Sunnyvale is one of just a handful of significantly-sized cities nationwide where police, fire and emergency medical technician services are all conducted within a single department, according to Public Safety Capt. Dzanh Le. Le said that Sunnyvale has the second largest department of this kind in the nation (after Kalamazoo, Michigan), and that Rohnert Park is the only other place he knows of that does it in California. Sunnyvale has had the arrangement since 1950, according to Le.