By Ben Irwin. San Jose Spotlight.
San Jose leaders moved forward with recommendations on how to improve the city's police department, despite lingering concerns and drama surrounding the resignation and retirement of the police's two top auditors.
The San Jose City Council on Tuesday approved the five recommendations from the Office of the Independent Police Auditor: tracking when an officer points a firearm at a person as a use of force, tracking weapons found on suspects who were perceived as armed, providing guidance to officers when asking people to exit their vehicles, updating policies to reflect when a person is allowed to search, and the need for technology to check car window tint.
Karyn Sinunu-Towery, a former Santa Clara County prosecutor for 30 years, filed the report Tuesday. She took over as acting auditor after the previous bureau chief, Shivaun Nurre, opted to retire after getting into a tense, drunken argument with a police officer at an event in June. Nurre was originally going to present the report he compiled in his office before he retired.
“I am presenting a report that I did not write,” Sinunu-Towery said at the meeting.
Beyond the recommendations, Sinunu-Towery explained that the report is full of data, some of which is misleading. Of the 362 complaints against officials included in the report, the comptroller's office disagreed with 14 percent of the complaints and 16 percent of them were “closed with concern.”
Sinunu-Towery noted that if the official investigation is not completed within 365 days, no discipline can be imposed. According to city officials, multiple investigations were hastily closed because the auditor and city manager had minimal time to meet deadlines.
If an investigation that had been completed reached the IPA office with only 45 days left on the calendar, it was often closed with concern, Sinunu-Towery said. If it arrived with only 10 days left, the auditor did not agree with the investigation and it was closed.
“I can't tell you today whether the IPA disagreed 14 percent of the time, whether it was about the procedure or (the) substance (of the investigation),” Sinunu-Towery detailed.
Sinunu-Towery stressed that she “didn't want to get into personnel issues” but thought some people “failed at the job” in getting officers' investigations completed on time.
“Both the API office and (Internal Affairs) miss some deadlines,” Sinunu-Towery stressed. “I think we've worked out those deadlines… that's my hope.”
Sinunu-Towery was confident in data showing that use of force complaints are declining: Use of force allegations are down 31 percent and use of force complaints are down 19 percent. But overall complaints against sworn officers are at their highest level in three years.
Police Chief Mata said in a Sept. 19 memo that the department has already been making its best efforts to track data on perceived armed suspects and weapons found, a recommendation in the independent auditor's report. But the San Jose police watchdog said that in more than half of the 1,593 events in which officers used force after perceiving a threat from a weapon against a person, officers reported that the weapon was “unknown”, “other dangerous weapon” or “other and unknown”.
The report highlights that the threat of a weapon provides substantial weight to justify the use of force. In 2021, suspects armed with weapons, deadly or not, were found in only 4% of use of force incidents, according to the report.
Councilman Peter Ortiz pressed Deputy Police Chief Paul Joseph (Mata was not present) to have more oversight to ensure that weapons found or not found in use of force cases are actually reported. Ortiz's question went largely unanswered by Sinunu-Towery and Joseph.
The Rev. Jethroe Moore II, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, said the turmoil in leadership in the police auditor's office has not been kind to morale.
“I think a lot of workers are very frustrated and disenchanted right now with the organization as a whole and the lack of support and response from the city government,” Moore told San José Spotlight.
Before leaving office, Nurre, as well as former Mayor Sam Liccardo, suggested that the city expand auditors' investigative powers over the police department in December 2022. But no steps have been taken to move forward on that and the talks have stalled. The API office has not yet independently investigated allegations of wrongdoing by officers.
“We continue to see that nothing is happening to the officers (with complaints), and nothing is really changing with the interaction with us as a community,” Moore noted. “Start looking at Internal Affairs, putting those officers back on the street doing hard work and putting Internal Affairs (money) toward hiring a police auditor that is totally independent and free of the police department… and giving them the power. summon the police to come talk to them. “Actually, give them some power.”
Eva Roa, independent deputy auditor of the city police since 2020, also left her position in September. He said he was not given an exit interview when he resigned and instead sent a scathing letter to city officials. In it, he alleged that the office is largely without power and that the city consistently ignores IPA recommendations to hold sworn city employees accountable for their actions.
“One would expect that the SJPD would want to improve practices and create a culture of accountability and responsibility,” Roa noted. “However, based on some of the most egregious cases I have seen, SJPD and Internal Affairs lack true accountability and growth as a department.”
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