Police Have a Problem

The San Diego Police Department has a serious community relations problem. This is not to be confused with an image problem or a public relations problem. It’s a matter of an extreme lack of faith in police officers by significant segments of San Diego’s minority communities.

Anyone who ever doubted the existence of this problem surely no longer can in light of the large turnout and emotional testimony at the first hearing to be held in a predominantly black neighborhood by the Citizens Advisory Board on Police-Community Relations. The contrast between the recent meeting in Encanto and the board’s first public hearing in Rancho Bernardo, where the half-dozen residents who showed up were basically complimentary to the police force, could not have been more stark.

Some of the complaints, such as the infrequency of patrols and lack of responsiveness when the police are called, might be typical of those felt in many neighborhoods. But what came through loudest from speaker after speaker was anger based on the perception that police officers treat minorities with discourtesy and disrespect in ways they generally would not treat whites.

It’s a subject that surfaces repeatedly in conversations with activist blacks and Latinos, most of whom have an abundant supply of anecdotes to illustrate that different standards of police behavior toward whites and minorities exist. Many of the stories have to do with mundane indignities such as requiring a black youth to sit in a police car after an auto accident while the white driver who caused the wreck, reeking of liquor, was allowed to move about freely. Others reflect biased attitudes, such as speculating to a family who reports the theft of a motorcycle that it was probably stolen by illegal aliens.

But some actions by the police are more troubling. For example, in the hours after the shooting of two policemen by Sagon Penn--but well after Penn’s arrest--police officers were trampling the rights of residents of Southeast San Diego in an undisciplined display of anger that served to heat up community resentment over the tragic incident.

So far, Police Chief Bill Kolender and his top aides have not shown a willingness to come to grips with this problem. They are quick to talk about open communications with minority communities, but not so quick to acknowledge the possibility that some police officers have attitude problems. They defend the Police Department’s practice of investigating complaints against officers, but show no curiousity about reports of substantial rights violations that come to light in ways other than the formal complaint process.

The ill will that many minority residents bear the police is not going to disappear on its own. The Police Department must begin now to really listen to what the residents of the minority communities are saying about police-community relations. The police hierarchy must show the public that it’s ready to aggressively investigate complaints against officers and take seriously allegations of patterns of misconduct.

Chief Kolender needs to send his officers the unmistakable message that prejudicial treatment of minorities or disrespectfulness toward any member of the public will not be tolerated.