SAN JOSE — In response to recent scandals that have plagued the San Jose Police Department — including reports of drug and alcohol abuse and on-duty sexual misconduct by officers — Police Chief Anthony Mata outlined a series of departmental changes Wednesday aimed at preemptively snuffing out problem behavior.
“Five recent incidents of tragedy, unacceptable behavior, and criminal misconduct have rightly raised concerns in our community and within this department,” Mata said before detailing plans to bolster existing background evaluations of police recruits and new hires, expand drug and alcohol testing and put more responsibility on supervisors to keep closer watch on their officers.
The proposals follow a series of damaging reports of misconduct by police officers, which began with a finding by the coroner’s office late last month that rookie officer De’Jon Packer, a one-time football standout at San Jose State University, had died suddenly in March because of a fentanyl overdose.
In the ensuing two weeks, another San Jose police officer came under investigation for reportedly coming to work drunk during a massive search for a kidnapped infant, and another officer, Matthew Dominguez, was arrested and criminally charged after allegedly being caught masturbating while working a domestic disturbance call. An off-duty officer was also arrested in Hayward on suspicion of drunk driving following a car collision, and reports surfaced about an officer becoming the subject of an internal investigation after he was accused of giving a meth pipe to an informant.
In a news conference, Mata and his second-in-command, Assistant Chief Paul Joseph, said they were “frustrated” with the situation. But they also sought to temper expectations for the impact of their proposals.
“I can’t guarantee there will never be another officer that violates your trust,” Mata said. “But I will guarantee that as your police chief, and the leader of this great organization, I will rid our ranks of individuals in the manner we have recently seen.”
When asked if the public should feel confident that the new policies will specifically address the issues laid bare by the officer controversies, Joseph said the department is “trying everything we can.”
“Nothing is off the table,” he said. “All of these changes are welcome.”
Among the pledges Mata made is turning to a third-party firm to independently audit the agency’s current hiring and background-check practices. The chief said he also will lobby local legislators to change state law to allow police agencies to publicly release names and details about officers involved in high-profile misconduct without running afoul of rules protecting personnel information and officer privacy. He also said he wants to increase random audits of officers’ body-camera footage.
By and large, the chief was elaborating on plans announced earlier this month to increase random drug and alcohol testing among the sworn staff, which along with the background and screening proposals, were endorsed by the police union and Mayor Sam Liccardo, who stood behind Mata at Wednesday’s news conference. In public remarks earlier this month, Liccardo said he was “furious” with the officer misconduct cases and voiced concern about how officer candidates were being vetted, and both he and Mata have lamented how the scandals tarnished the rest of the department.
In a statement Wednesday, the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, which would have to sign off on several of the proposals, said it is “supportive of any effort to improve hiring standards and background investigations.” But the union also warned that “we must never lower our hiring standards and instead double down on attracting qualified cadets to enter our academy.”
Citing a lack of connection among the officers involved in the alleged misconduct, Mata and Joseph outlined a wide net of initiatives aimed at catching problems among officers that includes performing deeper dives into applicants’ backgrounds. Neither Mata nor Joseph would say exactly how effective the new initiatives could have been in preventing the scandals that preceded them.
“We’re not making excuses for this kind of behavior, but we need to understand why to prevent it,” Joseph said.
Joseph reiterated that four of the officers involved in the scandals had less than five years of time in the agency. Mata also said he will revisit whether military experience should continue to be accepted as a substitute for baseline education requirements — currently, at least two years of community college is needed to apply.
Mata noted that some changes were already in progress before the recent controversies, including looking at potential hires’ social media and using psychological evaluations to identify potential bias and hate-group affiliations. These initiatives were formed largely in response to a 2020 social-media scandal that found several active and retired SJPD officers participating in racist and Islamophobic exchanges on a defunct Facebook group, which ensnared the department in national controversy.
The chief said that he is doing “a hard reset” to increase expectations from police supervisors to identify and report mental-health and substance abuse issues among their subordinates. He also mentioned instituting training for officers to recognize substance abuse among their peers and turning to smartphone apps to better connect officers to mental-health resources.
Still, in the face of the current controversy, San Jose’s police leaders insisted the department is on a positive trajectory, noting that though the number of police calls rose in 2021, arrests rates did not — and that reported use of force by officers declined sharply.
“These are not the actions or statistics of a department in crisis,” Joseph said.
Source: www.mercurynews.com