Policing the Police
An Interview with the San Jose Independent Police Auditor Barbara Attard
By David Madrid

(The following is a partial transcription of an interview conducted by David Madrid on De-Bug's weekly radio show “Block 2 Block”, which airs every Wednesday on 91.5 FM from 9-10am.)

B2B: We have the Independent Police Auditor, Barbara Attard, in studio. Thank you for coming on Block 2 Block radio. I know you have a report you wanted to get in to, but let me ask first off, what exactly does the Independent Police Auditor office do?

IPA: The Independent Police Auditor was established about 12 years ago by the City of San Jose, we are the civilian oversight body for the San Jose Police Department. We serve as a place where people can file a complaint about police misconduct specifically about San Jose police officers, we audit the investigations of police misconduct, which are investigated by Internal affairs office of the SJPD.   Also, we have the authority to sit in on officer interviews and once the investigation is complete, we fully audit those cases. If we have issues with the investigation or with the findings we can raise those with Internal Affairs and then up the chain to the police chief or the city manager. We are also required to provide statistics to the city counsel about police misconduct. And within the last couple of years we have the authority to review officer involved shootings, I'm called out to the scene if there is a shooting, we get a briefing and after the investigation is completed, we review them for policy issues and to ensure that a full investigation was completed.       
B2B: Since the Internal Affairs office is apart of the SJPD, and is in charge of investigating police misconduct cases, how do you respond to the criticism that folks have about the police not being able to investigate themselves fairly?

IPA: That's kind of an age old issue that people have with Internal Affairs. I think that's why oversight offices have been established across the country the past 30 years, because people don't trust an Internal office to police themselves. That's why I think that it is very important that there is oversight.   For example, we look at the numbers of the past year, and we have to ask, why are half the cases that start as “complaints” against officers becoming “inquiries” on officers? And that's something that would never come to the fore if there was no oversight.

B2B: The I.P.A's 2005 report was just released, what where some of the new findings on this years report?

IPA: From the report, we recently made two policy recommendations and these came out of officer involved shooting cases. One is that officer's wait for back up in cases that are not too urgent. There were a couple of officer involved shootings cases in 2004 where the officers arrived on a seen that wasn't urgent and dealt with a suspect individually and it resulted in officer involved shootings. Most likely, if there were more officers involved in those cases, they would have ended up differently. The other recommendation was that officers should not shoot at moving vehicles. In one case, an officer shot at a vehicle and killed the driver and the car went speeding out on to King Road and then crashed into a tree. So officers shooting at a suspect in a moving vehicle ultimately will not stop the vehicle, but create a dangerous situation for the officer and the community at large. Those two recommendations were accepted by the City Council, but the police chief asked that the shooting at vehicle policy be tweaked a little before the department would consider the policy.   So that's where we are at.      

B2B: Tell us more about this inquiry issue that you raised earlier.

IPA: The other issue that has came out from our report is around inquiry's, we found that over half of the cases that where filed last year where made inquiries by Internal Affairs and in those cases there is not an investigation and the cases are not tracked by officers. So we feel that we are missing out on half of the data to deal with what could be the problem.

B2B: Tell us more about the discrepancy between inquiry and complaint.   The police chief always uses the defense that there is no police abuse in San Jose by pointing to a low number of complaints. But what you have uncovered is that there may be something happening at the Internal Affairs office that could be producing inaccurate numbers.

IPA: Good question, one of the things we noted in this years report is that complaints are up, within the last two years there has been an increase. I think that means that people are starting to feel more free to come forward with their complaints.   The concern to me was that half of the cases that came in last year were classified as “inquiries” and in those cases there is no investigation and the officers name are not tracked.   And because those numbers went up 72% from the year before, we actually audited all of those complaints and found that out of all the cases, 84 of them had issues that we felt should have been investigated. So we feel that a significant number of cases are being classified as inquiries and are not being investigated at the level we feel that they should be.

B2B: So for all those folks who end up at the Internal Affairs office, don't get swayed by them into making your complaint into an inquiry, cause then we don't have any track record on the cops, and they won't get disciplined. Ok, we have a caller on line one. Caller, hello, you there?

Caller : Hi, yes. I'm with the Coalition for Justice and Accountability, I have a question on the subject of tasers. Why do you continue to compromise with the police chief Rob Davis, and allow tasers to be part of the arsenal in the city of San Jose?

IPA: I would have to disagree with you, I think that the taser is an important weapon for officers, but I do feel that they need to have very strict and specific written guidelines from the department for when they should and should not be used.   I also feel like the number of times the officers use the taser on somebody needs to be specifically allocated, and I think right now the police departments written guidelines say no more then three tases. I think that is the biggest issue, the number of times that people are shocked with tasers.

Caller: Given that a 5 second blast is what the default time is, you're talking about a 15 seconds total, that in some parts of the world has been banned because it is known as a tool of torture, when do you think it is appropriate for the use of a taser? Take into consideration the fact that cops are now banning the use of even a one second taser blast on fellow officers during training, because of the severe injury.

IPA: I think that in situations where officers are involved with someone that is violent and if they use the taser and that incapacities them, I think that saves both the officer and the suspects from what could be a brutal battle as well as preventing the suspect from being shot. So I do believe that in some circumstance that it is justified and an important tool.

B2B: Alright now, we have another caller on line 2.

Caller 2: Hello, does the Auditor think that the Independent Police Auditor's office should have more investigative powers such as subpoena powers or being the primary investigative body? I just don't believe that the Internal Affairs office could provide a just investigation.

IPA: More investigative powers was one of the recommendations that was made by the grand jury recently and I think that it is something that City Council should look at in very limited circumstances if the police department is not investigating a case.

Post a Comment:
(De-Bug will publish e-mails on this page as soon as possible.)