Most Santa Clara residents view police favorably

“I wasn’t really surprised at the results because I do think, being a member of the department for so long, that our officers do a very good job.” — Police Chief Michael Sellers

While most people who live in Santa Clara trust the police, young people of color are much more likely to be wary of the officers patrolling their neighborhoods, a newly released report shows.

The unprecedented year-long study by the company My90 examined the views of Santa Clara residents on local policing to help illuminate and bridge the gap between the public and the police. Last year, San Jose police used the same message and data sharing platform to better understand how residents of the Hoffman-Via Monte neighborhood viewed local law enforcement.

Over the past year, My90 — which was launched in 2016 — surveyed more than 280 people across Santa Clara in multiple languages, held a community panel with local leaders, and hosted a series of focus groups, with some 330 residents providing feedback. On Tuesday, the company presented their findings in the study — funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the San Francisco 49ers — to the Santa Clara City Council.

“The trust and satisfaction that people reported was very high,” said Kona Shen, the co-founder and CEO of My90.

Of residents surveyed who had recently interacted with a Santa Clara police officer, 87 percent said they were either very or somewhat satisfied with the service they received, and 92 percent of survey respondents said they think SCPD is very or somewhat trustworthy.

“I wasn’t really surprised at the results because I do think, being a member of the department for so long, that our officers do a very good job,” said Police Chief Michael Sellers, who has spent his entire ca-

reer in law enforcement in the city.

He’d wanted to partner with My90, he said, because “I wanted to find out what our community felt about police.”

Still, a focus group of four people of color under age 30 showed that not everyone in the city is pleased with the police. When asked to describe the police department, the group suggested words like “smug” and “intimidating.”

The group’s participants were more likely to have had a negative interaction with the police or negative perception of police in general, whereas a group of small business owners in another focus group had more favorable views because they’d relied on police for help dealing with homeless people being aggressive toward customers or to assist with break-ins.

In the citywide survey, one respondent wrote, “This rough and rude ‘city cop’ attitude at the must be trained out of the entire police force; otherwise, this police force will continue to be one that rides roughshod over the polite and gentle people they serve.”

In general, My90 said, young people of color were the most underrepresented in the survey despite efforts to reach them. Overall, 66 percent of survey respondents were white even though white residents make up a third of the population.

Sellers said he’s also trying to create a police force that is reflective of the community. Right now, SCPD doesn’t have any Korean officers, he said, so he’s reached out to the Korean community to ask for suggestions about how to encourage Korean residents to apply.

Of the department’s 156 sworn officers, 89 percent are male and 11 percent are female. Fifty-nine percent are white, 4 percent are black, 16 percent are Hispanic, 8 percent are Asian and 14 percent fall into the “other” category. Citywide, roughly 34 percent of residents are white, 3.6 percent are black, 18.5 percent are Hispanic, 40 percent are Asian and 3.4 percent are “other.”

While the city regularly hosts what are supposed to be informal, non-threatening opportunities for residents to meet police over cups of coffee, Sellers said, the research showed that young people of color are unlikely to attend such events, so their interactions with police tend to be limited to their experiences with officers on patrol.

It can be tough, Sellers acknowledged, to connect with people who don’t feel like they’re being served, particularly when they are reluctant to engage with officers. But the survey results, he continued, reinforce the importance of police talking informally with residents in their neighborhoods.

“I want to really encourage the officers, when they’re going for a break or driving through a park or neighborhoods, to stop and have a chat with people,” Sellers said.

Sellers said he also plans to create an advisory committee of 10-15 people to be “a good sounding board” for the chief. And he wants to develop a crisis response communication plan, to outline exactly how his department will communicate with residents in the event of an officer-involved shooting or other major crisis.

Both survey respondents and people who participated in the panel said property crime and traffic enforcement are the city’s most pressing issues, which fits with Sellers’ experience. Car break-ins, he said, are up significantly and he urged people not to leave belongings visible.

Slightly less than half of the survey respondents said their most recent interaction with the police department was when they contacted SCPD, 28 percent said they’d met an officer or staff member at an event, and about 9 percent said they’d been stopped or arrested.

And while most residents are pleased with the department’s response time, those who reported slow response times were less likely to trust the department overall.

Overall, 7.5 percent of respondents said they were somewhat dissatisfied, while 5.2 percent said they were very dissatisfied.

In one of the report’s more interesting findings, more than 55 percent of respondents said they would absolutely or probably support the department using a drone in the future, while just a quarter said they would probably or definitely not.

Across the board, people who trusted and didn’t trust the police encouraged officers to spend more time out in the community talking to residents.

Or, as My90 put it in the company’s report, “The overarching theme…was that both police officers and community members should take steps to better know one another.”

In the coming days, My90 will present its findings at a department training. And while Sellers acknowledges there’s room for improvement, he wants his officers to know that they’re doing a lot right, too.

“I want them to understand,” he said, “that their hard work is being noticed.”

See the full results of My90’s work in Santa Clara here.