Michael Smolens: City makes sudden moves on reforms.

Just days ago, one of the highest-profile duties for San Diego police was keeping people from sitting, sunbathing or gathering too close together on the beach to fight the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

It’s hard to even remember that.

The image of men and women in blue plodding through the sand telling dawdlers to keep moving has been replaced by one of officers in riot gear lined up in tense face-offs with protesters and, later, rioters and looters.

Life moves at warp speed these days, and more changes are ahead for San Diego police. Beyond the dramatically shifting role from protecting public health to keeping order in the streets, the San Diego Police Department and its officers likely will have to accept reforms they have long resisted.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer and his appointed police chief, David Nisleit, on Monday announced SDPD will immediately stop using the carotid restraint.

The neck hold used to subdue people has come to be viewed as dangerous and unnecessary, and minority groups in particular have condemned it. Other police departments increasingly have abandoned the practice.

San Diego police officials had continually defended the tactic, as they did in an in-depth article last year by Lyndsay Winkley of The San Diego Union-tribune.

The reversal was stunning enough. But Faulconer wasn’t done. Later on Monday, as protesters again marched downtown, he threw his support behind a 30-plus-year effort to establish an independent commission to investigate alleged police misconduct and examine police practices.

“That is moving forward,” the Republican mayor said at a news conference. “It will be on the ballot ... I look forward to giving it my full support.”

The next day, District Attorney Summer Stephan, a Republican-turned-independent, joined him.

“DA Summer Stephan supports the proposed San Diego Independent Police Commission in that it appears to promote balanced oversight and transparency,” her spokeswoman, Tanya Sierra, said in an email Tuesday.

There’s a reason the saying “Never let a good crisis go to waste” has staying power (though I’ll quibble with the word “good” in the current context). Sometimes it takes extraordinary

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circumstances to break a political or cultural log jam.

San Diegans are mostly protesting peacefully by day but, unfortunately, some people are rioting and looting at night, all in the wake of the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

Without that pressure, the proposal for the new Commission on Police Practices faced an uphill battle, as it has for years, and the carotid restraint likely still would be an approved SDPD tactic.

While Nisleit said use of the neck hold would end immediately, the new commission still faces crucial steps.

The ballot measure sponsored by Women Occupy San Diego, the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association and San Diegans for Justice would create an independent commission that would have the power of subpoena and its own investigators and legal counsel.

The panel would be more powerful than the one it is designed to replace, the Community Review Board on Police Practices, which, essentially, assesses internal police investigations.

The proposed ballot measure has been advanced by the council. But because it involves labor issues, the proposal is subject to “meetand-confer” negotiations between the Faulconer administration and the San Diego Police Officers Association, an influential organization that has successfully worked to block an independent commission in the past.

“We’ve been having a lot of very good, productive discussions with our police officers association,” Faulconer said Monday.

Late Tuesday, Jack Schaeffer, head of the association, said his organization had recently signed off on the proposal.

It’s not known publicly what changes may have been requested by the union and whether they will be acceptable to backers of the proposal. Even before Monday, it appeared a council majority supports putting

the measure on the November ballot.

Should it get there, and win approval from voters, another big battle awaits. That would be over the enabling ordinance that details how the commission will be set up and how it will operate.

Five of the nine council seats will change hands after the November election. While the council will retain a strong Democratic majority, it’s not clear where the new members’ sympathies lie when it comes to police oversight.

There will also be a question of whether the panel can be adequately staffed and funded as the COVID-19 crisis is forcing the city to make significant budget cuts.

San Diego has been in disagreement for years over which is the best approach — the current model that relies on the Police Department and city administration, or an independent committee.

In 1988, a proposal for an independent board went on the ballot but was opposed by the police officers association. A competing plan for a panel similar to what exists now was also placed on the ballot. The latter won by about 800 votes.

Other efforts have taken place over the years. The latest plan seemed targeted for the 2018 fall election, but the process bogged down, which led to accusations that the proposal may have been intentionally slowwalked through City Hall in order to miss the ballot deadline.

While the turmoil in San Diego may have pushed Faulconer and others to embrace the concept, pressure for an independent commission has been building for years amid increased concern over whether police are treating people of color differently from white people.

Two studies in recent years, one by San Diego State University and one by the local ACLU, revealed data that showed people of color were searched more frequently during traffic stops by SDPD and the county Sheriff ’s Department.

Like other studies across

the country, the reports sought to determine if there’s data-driven evidence behind complaints that bias leads to disparities in policing. And like many of those other studies, its conclusions have been disputed, particularly by police agencies.

Meanwhile, community groups and progressive political organizers advocating for the new police panel built momentum, which occurred as the number of San Diego Democratic elected officials and voters continued to grow.

Now, as signaled by Faulconer, Stephan and the police officers association, the city’s establishment is backing the proposal, though the details are still unclear. That will greatly strengthen the prospects of an independent police commission winning approval in November, if not guarantee it.

Let’s just hope officers aren’t still in riot gear by then.

michael.smolens @sduniontribune.com