Candidates make public pitches virtually

Seven finalists respond to questions about systemic racism, diversity and accountability

Seven finalists vying to become San Jose’s next police chief made their inaugural overtures to the public in a virtual forum Saturday.

The forum’s panel format consolidated hundreds of submitted resident and community questions into five broad prompts.

SJPD Deputy Chief Heather Randol is the only woman in the final pool. Deputy Chief Anthony Mata is the only Latino. Two external candidates, Piedmont Police Chief and SJPD alum Jeremy Bowers and retired Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Assistant Chief Larry Scirotto, are biracial and identify as Black. SJPD Capt. Jason Ta is Vietnamese. Randol, SJPD acting Chief David Tindall and soon-to-retire Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll are White.

The last-minute addition of Doll and Scirotto — after the application deadline was extended twice since Dec. 31 — was evident Feb. 13. Their answers were often general and academic, and in some instances they noted how they had been familiarizing themselves with San Jose in just the past two weeks.

City Manager David Sykes said Saturday’s forum will be followed by interview panels between each finalist and members of upwards of 50 civic groups. Sykes said he plans to make a selection by midto late-march.

Racial equity and systemic racism

Doll said officers confronting their own biases and working with community members is an “engagement opportunity to help people who are underserved.”

Mata said the department has to “acknowledge our failures” on the issue, and that in making amends, “we must have these candid conversations and listen to the experiences and trauma that exist” in the community.

Randol and Scirotto spoke to the need for police to put in the forefront how American policing originated in slave patrols and the enforcement of laws expressly aimed at oppressing people of color.

Randol said an “internal examination” of equity in the department’s operations is necessary and that racial equity progress should be examined alongside crime. She brought up how seemingly perfunctory policies, such as having a $15,000 threshold for financial crimes, are overlooked.

“While we don’t intend to be inequitable, we may be giving our attention to someone who is wealthier,” she said.

Tindall and Randol both referenced the need to work closely with the city’s newly established Office of Racial Equity, and Tindall said he would create a command position to oversee the department’s performance. He also pointed to past enforcement of vehicle towing when drivers were found without valid licenses, and how destructive that discretionary enforcement had been on families of color.

“How many things are out there that we do on autopilot?” he said. “Good intentions can create unintended results.”

Ta said more data is needed to get to the heart of bias in the department’s work and emphasized diversity in promotions to foster “institutionalized compassion.” Bowers said the department’s legitimacy with its underserved communities hinges on a structural review, “to look at the systems that are in place … We need to look at the culture.”

Quality-of-life crimes

The second panel question asked how the candidates can make the department responsive to property crimes and qualityof-life crimes that have secondary priority to violent crimes.

The candidates pointed to a need to leverage partnerships with neighborhood and business organizations.

Mata and Scirotto pushed increased surveillance in the form of public security cameras, and Bowers lauded improvements yielded from installing automatic-license plate readers at entry points to Piedmont.

Randol and Tindall said the department has to be mindful of how these crimes often intersect with social issues like homelessness, mental illness and substance addiction.

Officer discipline and department accountability

All of the candidates made some reference to a need for more transparency with officer disciplinary matters. The city was also empowered last fall by a voter-approved initiative to expand the purview of the city’s independent police auditor.

The candidates all promoted discipline processes that were fair to officers and accountable to the public. Several said discipline has to be based on correcting behavior before punishment. Scirotto called that “the difference between making a mistake of the mind and making a mistake of the heart.”

Bowers, Mata and Randol acknowledged how existing policy already compels officers to intercede, but that such behavior remains underreported. Randol said she wants to increase protections and anonymity for reporting officers.

“Policy alone is not enough,” Bowers said. “There’s a saying: ‘Culture eats policy for lunch.’”

Community engagement

Here’s a sampling of the candidates’ views on increasing connections and trust with underserved communities:

• Scirotto: “Start with giving the community a voice at the table when we’re developing strategic initiatives.”

• Ta: “There’s no secret recipe on trying to connect with marginalized communities … If you don’t have these conversations, don’t have those connections, you will never improve some of the problems that we see starting to erupt.”

• Tindall: “The first step is to listen, listen, and listen some more.”

• Bowers: “It’s going to take, oftentimes, meeting them where they are at, literally and figuratively. It’s got to be genuine, not during a crisis.”

• Doll: “You have to go out and do it in person.”

• Mata: “To build trust one has to be genuine, honest, compassionate and collaborative.”

• Randol: “We don’t need to separate avenues, policing and community policing. They should be one and the same.”

Recruitment and retention

Ta said that to continue increasing SJPD diversity, the department has to leverage senior officers who embody diversity in areas like race, ethnicity, sexual and gender identity and life experience to offer aspirational models.

Scirotto pointed to his time in Pittsburgh when the department hired its first two transgender officers and said equal focus has to be placed on making marginalized officers comfortable and giving the rest of the rank-and-file the cultural competency to be genuinely inclusive.

Bowers and Ta emphasized how a major engine for culture change is diversity in promotions being paired with diversity in hiring. Tindall agreed and added that the department has to recommit to youth outreach.

Mata and Randol spoke of how they have made it part of their jobs to mentor Latino and female officers, respectively, and Randol said those “ad hoc” arrangements need to be institutionalized, starting upon academy graduation.

To read an expanded version of this article and view a recording of the forum, go online to https:// bayareane.ws/sjpdforum.

Contact Robert Salonga at 408920-5002.