San Jose police Chief Garcia announces his retirement
‘I’m ... thankful for the opportunity this city and department gave me’
SAN JOSE >> Eddie Garcia, who has spent more than four years as chief of the San Jose Police Department as part of a 28-year career in his adopted hometown, announced Monday he is retiring at the end of the year.
When Garcia took over as chief in 2016, SJPD was at a crossroads. Recession-fueled austerity measures and a protracted political battle over pension benefits helped drive an officer exodus that had whittled the ranks to just over 900, a number not seen since the mid-1980s.
Now, as Garcia leaves the department, it faces a different reckoning: A national police reform movement galvanized by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has reached San Jose, propelled by local furor over SJPD’s own violent response to related protests downtown.
The chief said Monday that his December retirement had been in the works for some time but that he held off on announcing it in June as originally planned in part because of the fallout from the department’s response to protests that began in late May. Though that fallout is ongoing, Garcia, who turns 50 in December, said Monday he decided not to postpone the announcement any longer in order to allow the city to formally start a search for his successor.
“I’m at peace with it. I know people will try to connect dots because of what’s going on, and all the change that is happening, but
this decision was made long ago,” Garcia said. “I was a Puerto Rican kid that came to San Jose, and I didn’t know how to speak English. I ended up being the chief of police for the 10th largest city in the country. I’m humbled … and forever thankful for the opportunity this city and department gave me.”
Had he decided to retire a year earlier, the story of his time as chief might have been headlined by his work restoring SJPD’s status as a national destination for officers, with ranks now up to about 1,150 and robust police academies. The department also has instituted a series of progressive measures including adopting body-worn cameras and mandatory crisis-intervention training, publishing aggregate use-of-force data online, and increasing community outreach efforts, particularly with schools in high-crime areas.
“Chief Garcia never forgot what it was like to push a patrol car through the streets of San Jose and what a difficult job police officers have in trying to keep our residents and businesses
safe,” Paul Kelly, president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, said.
But a string of recent high-profile controversies have fueled skepticism among Garcia’s critics and police-reform advocates over the effectiveness of those measures. An aggressive officer response to break up Black Lives Matter demonstrations — including deployment of rubber bullets, tear gas and other less-than-lethal munitions — was soon followed by a scandal over revelations that active and retired officers had for years been sharing racist and antiMuslim message over Facebook.
Then last week, amid
growing calls for independent oversight of police misconduct and use of force, a video of an officer kicking and dragging a woman sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot drew widespread condemnation, spurring fresh criticisms that the San Jose Police Department has fostered a culture that’s driving excessive use of force and other officer misbehavior.
“I’m not going to let these last three months define nearly five years as police chief and nearly three decades as a San Jose police officer,” Garcia said. “I hold absolutely no bitterness. I have had an incredibly supportive city council, and mayor. I’ve had two incredible
bosses.”
“History will remember Chief Eddie Garcia in the same way I’ve seen him embraced at countless community meetings: as a dynamic, exuberant leader who gave his heart and soul to his hometown,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a statement. “He brought this police department back from the brink, rebuilding our officers’ ranks, their morale, and most importantly, their faith in themselves and their mission.”
Liccardo suggested that the search for a new chief will allow the city to respond to the powerful community voices that have emerged in recent months.
“There’s no question that this is a moment of re-evaluation and re-imagination of policing in America,” Liccardo said. “We’ll need a chief willing to have hard conversations about how policing changes to address the evolving needs of our diverse community, and a chief sensitive to the morale and well being of the women and men who serve our community in uniform.”
As he has throughout his time as chief, Garcia sought Monday to separate officer misconduct — particularly involving questionable uses of force — as being distinct
from, rather than reflective of, the attitudes of the majority of rank-and-file police officers, a stance that has often put him at odds with community leaders and advocates.
“I’m going to admit that we have issues that we need to address. I’m going to admit that we have problem officers that we need to address,” he said. “But I am not going to admit that there is a culture issue in this police department and stain the reputation of the amazing men and women that put their lives on the line every day for these residents.”
In the same breath, Garcia said he valued the community leaders and groups that have leveled the criticisms that he has often refuted. “I have never begrudged our community groups, the ones that are loud and vocal, that want change, and that are constantly keeping the fire on the police department,” he said. “We need that.”
One of the most prominent of those critics over the years has been the civil rights group Silicon Valley De-Bug. The organization’s co-founder Raj Jayadev said Monday that the hiring of a new chief has to be paired with systemic change in the department.
“The fact that the current police chief is leaving at arguably the most dynamic, volatile, fluid moment in this city’s history when it comes to racial justice, means the community can help influence and guide what public safety means,” he said.
Garcia said his preference is that an internal candidate be chosen to succeed him. He added that whoever fills the position will be confronted with a long list of changes that community and civic leaders want made by the next police administration.
“You need to have a perspective of a large city, but with small-city resources,” he said. “You have to do a job with what you got, and you have to be honest with your community and your neighborhoods. But at the end of the day, they understand where you’re at and appreciate the hard work. That’s the balance.”
Lee Wilcox, chief of staff for the city manager, said the city plans to contract a firm to perform a nationwide search for the next chief and that details will be presented to the city council within the next week.