CREDIT AND CRITICIZE THE SAN DIEGO POLICE

The San Diego Police Department, Mayor Kevin Faulconer and the City Council have taken several valuable steps to improve policing in the seven weeks since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in barbaric fashion on Memorial Day, touching off racial justice protests nationwide. For one thing, SDPD has released video of three separate officerinvolved shootings over a two-week span within days of each one. The transparency and broader changes represent a display of good faith from city leaders responding to profound, legitimate concerns about police violence, but they don’t go far enough for activists demanding more reforms.

A unanimous City Council vote Tuesday created the path to one important and overdue political reform: Letting city voters decide in November whether to create a new police oversight board with authority to begin independent misconduct investigations and to subpoena witnesses. The current oversight program — without such independence — is seen as toothless and too tolerant of bad behavior.

Last month, Faulconer and Police Chief David Nisleit also jointly announced new rules emphasizing the need for officers to avoid using violence in dealing with the public. “This new de-escalation policy is the most robust or one of the most robust in the country,” Nisleit said. In dealing with the public, the mayor’s office said, officers must “take into consideration a subject’s ability to understand and communicate effectively, present lawful orders, and request cooperation with clear and concise direction; and attempt to establish trust and cooperatively de-escalate situational conflict.”

Yet the parallel announcement that the Police Department had created a “duty to intervene” in which officers who witness misconduct by their fellow officers “shall” — not should — both stop and report that misconduct needs to be considered with historical context. Faulconer said it “will make sure what happened in Minneapolis doesn’t happen here in San Diego.” That’s political spin.

Criminal justice activist Geneviéve Jones-wright noted the department’s policy manual already said “[o]fficers on duty shall at all times, lawfully protect life and property, detect and arrest violators of the law, prevent crime, preserve the public peace and enforce the laws of the state of California and the ordinances of the city of San Diego.”

“Their very oath confers the duty to intervene and to report other officers who break the law and engage in excessive force,” she wrote in an email.

The San Diego Union-tribune Editorial Board asked to interview Nisleit on these issues on July 1, but he declined. That’s unfortunate because this is a time for open communication. Thousands of San Diegans wrote the City Council last month urging change. We hoped to get the chief ’s reaction to the view that making misconduct rules stricter hardly ensures officers will heed them. The police mentality that places such value on loyalty among officers will remain even after additional reforms and oversight bodies with more independence and power.

No one should assume officials’ pronouncements alone will change this culture. Credit them with a start, but don’t mistake their rhetoric for accomplishment. They need to listen, talk and do more.