Who Polices the Police?


By Gil Villagrán, MSW
gvillagran [at] casa.sjsu.edu
San Jose, April 18, 2009

The San Jose Police Department has been featured almost weekly in news reports of six taser deaths since 2005, racial profiling, selective vehicle stops, and drunken arrests. An October Mercury News report that San Jose police arrested 4,600 in one year for public intoxication, and a disproportionate 56% were Latinos, resulted in hundreds attending a public hearing. After hours of angry and some tearful testimony of unjust arrests, mistreatment by officers, and a woman whose father was killed by police taser.

City Manager Debra Figone initiated a task force to study the issue and find a just resolution. The task force of 25, selected by Figone, has a fair representation of stakeholders, including Asian, African-American and Latino communities, Police Chief Rob Davis, the District Attorney and Public Defender, downtown business, city and county government.

I have attended most of the 6-9 pm Thursday meetings, and here is my review: 
 Chief Davis diplomatically explains that what seems as targeted arrests are in fact compassionate efforts "to protect the public, especially downtown club-goers, from injury by falling down, getting hit by cars, or aspirating their vomit." Davis cheerfully related, "in some cases officers even give the inebriated a ride home to ensure their safety." When asked how often officers provide such front door service, he offered to try to get the data. 


But the reality is that club-goers are ushered out of clubs at closing time, channeled by the 60 or more police on crowded sidewalks, and arrested when showing signs of inebriation-such as walking clumsily, bumping into others, jaywalking (even on streets closed to traffic by police), shouting, slurring speech. More egregious offenses are failing to follow orders from officers, asking questions, talking back or videotaping arrests. Community advocates call these "failing the attitude test" or "annoying an officer" arrests that often include the serious additional charge of "resisting arrest," which may be elevated to a felony. Adults out for a night of music, dancing, drinking, and generally having good time, all legal inside a club, may be startled to realize that the moment they exit onto public property-the sidewalk, they are in another world owned by police. The alcoholic beverages for relaxation and to cool off from the crowed dance floor are suddenly converted into penal code 647(f)--public intoxication. By officer discretion alone, one may end the evening in a jail cell, possibly injured by a police club or taser. One man was shot in the face after he "interfered with an officer" as he tasered his wife. 


The question asked by the task force is: are these arrests necessary, especially when the DA deems only 15% prosecutable? In prior times, inebriated individuals were offered a taxi home, allowed to call someone to pick them up, or taken to a "drunk tank" to sleep off their drunkenness. Davis pleads, "arrests are the only legal way to taken them into custody and save them from greater harm to themselves or others."


But contacts with police and city hall insiders and community groups offer these observations:
 "The Chief is stubborn, will never admit a mistaken policy damaging police-community relations." "Davis fought the Police Auditor, not realizing she was his loyal opposition whose recommendations could save his job." "The chief sets the tone for officers, or fails to do so, and they whatever they want." "Davis is not a cop's cop, never a street officer, doesn't have respect of street cops, so he can't push too much." "The support he has is because they have plenty of overtime pay, and force and arrest policies work for them, and he muzzled the Police Auditor." "Davis has the support of Mayor Reed, the council, and the city manager-as long as they're happy with Davis, he stays, the public be damned!" 


The question for Mayor Reed, City Council and City Manager Figone and most importantly, our residents, is: If Chief Davis cannot restrain aggressive officers quick on the draw with tasers or firearms, arresting non-violent inebriated individuals with sober designated drivers, then who can police the police?