SAN JOSE — The sudden retirement of San Jose’s civilian police watchdog followed an encounter at a community festival in which she drunkenly accosted police officers working security at the venue, she admitted publicly Thursday, three months after leaving the position.
In an interview with the Bay Area News Group, Shivaun Nurre said she was “ashamed” of her behavior and confirmed that the incident sped up her plans to retire from the city’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor.
Nurre, 63, submitted her notice to retire on June 7, three days following the events at the San Jose Greek Festival at the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. She said she regularly attended the event and was there in a personal capacity.
At the Greek festival, Nurre approached officers working what are known as “pay jobs” — such as extra patrols or private security gigs contracted through the police department — and loudly antagonized them. Sources told this news organization that Nurre was visibly intoxicated and that at least one of the police officers activated a body-worn camera to record the interaction.
A few days after the exchange, which sources said was documented in an incident report but yielded no arrest or proposed criminal charge, Nurre informed city officials of her intention to retire.
To this point, no public explanation had been given for Nurre’s decision to retire two years into her current four-year term. She was the interim auditor when she was promoted to the full-time post in 2018, and her appointment was renewed in 2021.
Nurre on Thursday owned up to behavior — including acknowledging her intoxication — that she said left her no choice but to resign.
“I am ashamed for the conduct I displayed. I should not have gotten into a heated argument with officers in public. It reflected poorly on me,” she said. “Because of that, I decided the stress level of my work and my desire to retire coalesced, and I decided to leave quickly.”
On June 27, the city administration and City Council announced that retired Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu-Towery was appointed to serve as interim auditor while the city conducts a search for a permanent successor. Nurre said she hopes her departure does not disrupt the accountability work her office performs.
“I take full responsibility for my conduct, and my conduct has consequences,” Nurre said. “It should not reflect upon the office, it was my mistake.”
When reached for comment, officials at the San Jose Police Department deferred to city officials.
In an interview on Thursday, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan declined to comment specifically on Nurre’s resignation, citing it as a personnel matter.
“We’re very fortunate that the vast majority of city employees hold themselves to a very high standard of professional conduct,” he said. “And on the rare occasion, when employees do not, there are consequences.”
Nurre had served in the IPA’s office for 17 years, primarily as the second-in-command but also served several interim stints leading the agency before she was promoted as the permanent IPA in 2018. She helmed the office through multiple controversies involving the San Jose Police Department, perhaps most notably when SJPD garnered national scorn for its violent response to George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020.
Throughout her tenure, she was viewed as a steadfast monitor who quietly pushed the department to improve its internal investigations of officer misconduct while staying in the good graces of city and police leaders. Most of the public tension her office drew was because of high-profile city efforts — including a successful ballot measure — to expand the watchdog’s footprint, headlined by a polarizing proposal to permanently shift IA investigations out of SJPD and into the direct purview of Nurre’s office.
Her policy positions included pressing the police department to treat instances in which officers drew and pointed their firearms as incidents of force and broadly urging the department to improve the breadth of internal investigations, which she contended gave too much deference to officers accused of misconduct.
Mahan said that an active search is underway to find a permanent IPA but that it could take as long as six months.
“I’m told that the IPA role, in particular, is difficult to hire for,” he said. “There just aren’t that many people in the country who have done this kind of work. And it’s a pretty limited pool. And most of the folks who do it and do it well are currently happily employed somewhere.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com