S.J. moves forward with police reform plan, new training site
SAN JOSE >> In the same week that San Jose named its next police chief, the City Council is moving ahead with what could be landmark police reform and also with a $45 million project to build the San Jose Police Department a new place to train officers.
Council members issued back-to-back unanimous votes last week to approve the search for a consultant to assess how the city could move internal police misconduct probes out of SJPD, and to buy a former Western Digital property in South San Jose to house the department’s next training center.
The police reform item stems from a pledge by Mayor Sam Liccardo, in the wake of last summer’s downtown violence by police officers on demonstrators protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, to transfer responsibility of internal affairs investigations to the city’s independent police auditor, a third-party investigator or both.
The council’s vote March 16 means that the city can move forward with accepting bids from consultants between now and April 16 and making a selection by May 1. A report would be due in July that outlines the logistics and feasibility of transferring the investigations, which in almost any scenario would require a significant boost in staff and resources for police auditor Shivaun Nurre’s office.
Should such a shift be deemed viable, the city would have to negotiate its final form with the San Jose Police Officers’ Association.
Along those lines, the council also approved a parallel process that entails a search for and evaluation of alternatives to transforming the current system, which must be completed by April 13.
This potential sea change in police accountability comes from voters’ approval last fall of Measure G, which besides expanding Nurre’s access to intradepartment conduct complaints and useof-force records, included broad language authorizing the city “to assign other duties to the IPA.”
Peter Ortiz, a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education who represents much of East San Jose, said in public comment that the proposed shift in police misconduct investigations is vital to assuring the trust of underserved communities who have borne the brunt of overpolicing and excessive force.
“No government entity should be entrusted to investigate itself,” Ortiz said. “It is imperative that we can guarantee to the community there will be an independent voice in misconduct investigations, and those investigations are rooted in transparency, strive for accountability and promote public trust.”
In voicing support, Gabriela Chavez-lopez, president of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, said “this work plan aligns with community aspirations toward police reform, such as meaningful systemic changes that hold officers accountable for their actions.”
The police union remains steadfast in its opposition to any changes in the internal affairs structure, leaning on how the IPA’S office agrees with more than 90% of IA conclusions and that conduct complaints represent a tiny percentage of police-community contacts on any given year.
“We are still unsure exactly what the city is attempting to fix,” SJPOA President Paul Kelly said in a statement March 19. “They should produce where they believe the IPA has fallen short in her oversight of these investigations and how this proposal would fix those shortcomings.”
At the meeting, Liccardo acknowledged that the road to the changes he proposed will be long.
“This transition is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “Thank you for your work on getting us to the starting line.”
Meanwhile, the council swiftly moved to approve the $18.5 million purchase of a 4.77-acre Enzo Drive property and 97,000-square-foot warehouse formerly owned by the hard-drive manufacturer Western Digital, with plans to make it the next police training facility.
For the past six years, police training has been housed at the SJPD substation on Great Oaks Parkway, alongside the department’s police academy, none of which was the substation’s intended purpose. It was meant to be a secondary full-service police station, but by the time it was constructed in 2010, the country was in recession and the department’s staffing trajectories plummeted.
The state commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training granted SJPD an allowance to use the substation as an improvised training facility provided it was a temporary solution.