Police union opts against diplomacy with harsh rhetoric

The San Diego city police union long has advocated for bigger budgets for the Police Department and opposed new procedures its members say make their jobs more difficult.

Mostly, those efforts had been waged with public diplomacy and backroom maneuvering.

The diplomatic approach went out the window last week.

Amid rising crime and a string of homicides at municipal parks, the San Diego Police Officers Association launched a broadside at Monica Montgomery Steppe, chair of the San Diego City Council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee.

Montgomery Steppe has been critical of police procedures, particularly the stops of motorists and pedestrians, who studies have shown are disproportionately people of color. The council member also has advocated reshaping public safety policy to focus more on economic and social justice issues that she says are at the root of crime, particularly in historically underserved communities south of Interstate 8, some of which she represents.

The union says Montgomery Steppe is seeking to divert necessary resources from policing amid staffing shortages.

Montgomery Steppe responded with passion, and was defended by some of her council colleagues, who chastised the union for using harsh rhetoric they said distracts from the city’s effort to deal with complex public safety issues.

If people were shocked by the POA’s attitude, union President Jared Wilson suggested in an interview they had better get used to it. He also took an unmistakable shot at his predecessors.

“The POA has changed from quiet, behind closed doors. It hasn’t been particularly effective,” said Wilson, who took over the leadership post in January. “After getting beat up for years, we’re going to protect our members. We haven’t ever done that before, so people are surprised.”

The harder line also comes as the union is in negotiations with the city over future pay and benefits, and other matters.

After the 12th park homicide in 12 months, the POA unloaded on Montgomery Steppe, according to David Hernandez of The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“She has not, to this point, proposed any sort of solution to address rising crime, nor violence in our parks specifically, let alone make it a top priority of her committee,” the POA said in a release.

Wilson later conceded that the council member has pursued “long-term solutions,” though he disagrees with her direction.

The union statement said Montgomery Steppe’s committee “has jurisdiction over both the police department and our parks.” That’s incorrect. The committee can help shape and recommend policy, but the mayor ultimately is in charge of the police and parks departments.

Asked what, specifically, the council committee should be doing about the park violence, Wilson said, “They can talk about it.”

At a council budget meeting on Friday, Montgomery Steppe said her “whole goal is to build trust between community members and officers and ... I have never wanted to have

an immature conversation about this.”

She referred to the demographic data related to police stops, suggesting changes need to be made, according to a string of video clips from the meeting embedded in a story by Andrew Bowen of KPBS.

“We, as a city, deserve to have the conversation,” the council member said. “We may not agree on everything.”

Then Montgomery Steppe added: “To me, every officer here is important, and just as important is that person sleeping on the street right now. This is what I will stand for, and I could give a damn what anybody says about it . ... No intimidation, no comment, nothing’s going to stop me from keeping these issues on the table.”

Council President Sean Elo-Rivera criticized the notion that Montgomery Steppe “has not done her part to make this a safer city.”

“I find that wholly unacceptable,” he continued. “Nobody has committed more time in office or prior to her election to ensuring peace, safety and justice in San Diego.”

To anyone who suggests Montgomery Steppe doesn’t care about pubic safety, Elo-Rivera said, “You’ve lost me. So stop.”

Councilmember Marni von Wilpert appeared to allude to the police union’s criticism, saying it “isn’t going to help the debate and it’s not going to show the public that we’re serious about having a debate on the issues.”

Through a spokesperson, Mayor Todd Gloria also admonished the union, which endorsed him in 2020.

“The Mayor believes these tactics are not helpful,” Rachel Laing, Gloria’s communications director, wrote in an email. “He has big initiatives on his agenda to enhance public safety for San Diegans, and we need the union to be partners on the progress we’re making toward ensuring officers’ compensation is competitive and that they have the tools they need to prevent and solve crime.”

Police union leaders in the past have resisted changes in use-of-force standards and the creation of an independent police review board supported by Montgomery Steppe and others. After decades of failed efforts, proponents of such a panel won voter approval in 2020 to create the Commission on Police Practices, which is still being organized.

Wilson said he didn’t view the union’s criticism as a personal attack on Montgomery Steppe.

“I think she cares about public safety,” he said, adding that her support for Gloria’s police budget — which includes a $13 million increase in operations spending — is “probably going to change the dialogue.”

One area that may see little change is the debate over efforts to curtail socalled pretext stops, in which an officer pulls over a motorist — or stops a person on the street — for a minor violation and takes the opportunity to investigate potentially higher-level crimes.

Los Angeles, among other cities, has taken steps to reduce pretext stops. According to The New York Times, officials pushing the new rules cite data showing that minor stops not only disproportionately involve Black drivers but do little to combat serious crime or improve public safety, and some escalate into avoidable violence, even killing officers or drivers.

Wilson and police union officials across the country say pretext stops are an important tool for officers to maintain public safety.

“There’s no room for movement on this,” Wilson said.

Gloria has proposed several new police policies and has called for a study aimed at limiting the use of pretext stops.

The police union has been especially critical of the locally proposed PrOTECT Act, which, among other things, would require officers to have “probable cause” to stop people. That’s a higher legal standard than the current threshold of “reasonable suspicion.”

Montgomery Steppe has requested a legal analysis from the City Attorney’s Office for the proposal, formally known as “Preventing Overpolicing Through Equitable Community Treatment.” A police union website insists such a law “would attempt to abolish policing within the City of San Diego.”

Middle ground is rare territory these days when it comes to law enforcement.