CANDIDATES

While Democrats in the race recently called for a suite of police reforms, Contreras questioned whether racial bias is the central determinant in police use of force.

“There’s a culture issue, there’s a heart issue, there’s systemic racism, there’s a bias issue,” said Glass, who said she participated in racial justice protests last year. “We need to take a look at changing how our officers are being trained. We also need to talk about equity. Upper-income communities want more police and low-income communities are over-policed.”

Contreras said he shares concerns about discrimination but is wary of language or policies that assume minority communities are at odds with law enforcement.

“I think we should always have empathy for people who have suffered any injustice,” he said. “But at the same time I think we should be very conscious of the rhetoric of equity .... To embrace a certain part of the equity rhetoric would be to embrace a certain mentality that limits us and puts us in a position of being a victim of the system.”

He said he thinks homelessness is a more important factor than race in police interactions and defunding police departments would increase lawlessness and crime.

The Democratic contenders said calls to defund police are really discussions about shifting spending priorities, to better address the range of social and medical emergencies that police now handle.

“I think we need to look at the variety of specialized situations that law enforcement are currently dispatched to and take those jobs away from law enforcement and reallocate them to the people who are actually trained professionals ... homeless outreach workers, mental heath professionals, social workers,” Parmely said. “We need to stop funneling everybody into the criminal justice situation.”

Crisis response teams should include “social workers and clinical therapists, to do intervention that’s culturally competent,” Munguia said.

When officers have abused or mistreated people they stop, they should lose their job and the ability to seek new positions with other agencies, several candidates argued.

“We need to make sure that there is a process of decertification,” Weber said, noting that doctors, teachers and other professionals hold licenses that can be revoked if they fail to follow professional standards.

“When you look at what I call rogue officers, they oftentimes have a pattern of this behavior and they can oftentimes go from police department to police department,” she said.

Munguia and Glass suggested establishing a state database with records of police abuse complaints and findings, to prevent officers who resigned or were fired following misconduct from getting law enforcement jobs elsewhere.

Weber said she helped establish a citizens police oversight board in La Mesa but added that police accountability should start long before officers ever interact with the public.

Departments should review hiring and training processes to make sure the people they recruit will react calmly in urgent situations, she said. And they should consider increasing the length of training and raising the age limit for police recruits, she argued.

“You are holding a gun, which is a deadly weapon, so you need to make sure you have mature individuals,” Weber said.

Glass pointed out that most police interactions are routine encounters that don’t require aggressive action. Officers should be trained to deescalate conflicts before they become crises, she said.

“A lot of our officers show up like warriors, and we really need guardians,” Glass said.

The 79th District includes parts of Southeast San Diego, Bonita, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and National City. The primary is April 6. The top two vote-getters will go through a runoff election June 8.