A sea of blue surged around the Fairmont Hotel last week as the California Police Chiefs’ Association gathered for its annual training symposium. The keynote was a talk on racially-biased policing from Dr. Phil Goff, lead researcher on the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity (CPLE), the very same expert brought in by the city council last year to see if San Jose police are, in fact, engaged in racially-biased policing).
Fly was denied entrance to the conference (killing a dream of reenacting a scene from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”), but spoke to Goff just before the event. He said that while the final report Is not complete, the SJPD is correct in assuming that his findings look good. “If the PD is deciding, for political reasons, to say ‘hey, the CPLE has done this analysis and here’s what it says,’ factually, they are 100 percent right,” Goff says.
“Look, I follow the news in San Jose, and I know there are other people saying this is a nonsense report. That’s a political consideration for which we have no comment.” Goff said he and his team are still waist-deep in research and have no idea when their final findings will be published (bad sign?). He is due to update the city council on his research this May, though.
“We’re professional nerds here,” Goff says. “I have this very radical position politically, which is that I’m pro-good, and anti-evil. I am just interested in
finding answers, that’s what we’re trying to do.”
If the data disproves the Merc and the activists, what will they do? Damn the report, ignore the data. Probably. But let’s hope the city council and mayor don’t follow. Let’s hope they have the integrity to say to the cops that we have wrongly condemned you. Let’s hope they ask the Merc to give back their awards for writing stories that wrong.
B. Fischer said, “If the data disproves the Merc and the activists, what will they do? Damn the report, ignore the data.”
Sadly they probably will ignore the facts. Case in point, I attended a community forum last night sponsored by the ALF at the Roosevelt Community Center. The meeting was supposed to focus on the community’s input on the IPA, and whether or not the community felt San Jose was a safe place to live. Small groups were formed and were supposed to report out in the end. That never occurred because a select few were allowed to over take the meeting and rant about their personal experiences.
Several people in the forum became outraged when the interim IPA tried to explain the TRUE function of the IPA’s Office per the City Charter and Code, when she tried to explain that the former IPA was not fired, but rather that the Mayor and Council decided not to renew her contract. They didn’t want to face the fact that Ms. Attard was not acting within the confines of her position by acting as an advocate to them.
They tore into Ed Rast when he tried to explain that the Mercury News, a source that clearly many in the room were depending on for accurate facts, skewed their stats and were misleading the public. They just didn’t want to hear it and starting verbally attacking them both. The moderator never intervened, even when asked, and the meeting was; in my personal opinion, yet another out of control let’s beat up the Police fest.
I honestly feel that Ms. Attard and the Mercury News have incited this community into believing things that just aren’t true. Ms. Attard has left a false perception of what the IPA’s Office really does. I feel very sorry for the next IPA who is stuck cleaning up her mess. Her advocacy for complainants has caused real harm to the very people it is supposed to serve.
I’ve been attending public forums on Police practices for almost 7 years now and there are many in the community who don’t want the truth, even when it is offered to them. The Mercury News has succeeded in getting many in our community to agree with their bent perception of SJPD practices. It is indeed a very sad thing to see.
I am surprised ALF would let its meeting get so out of control. Is ALF a member of the anti-SJPD crowd?
This was in the Mercury today, if anybody needs a good laugh.
“Five more Mercury News staff members have been honored for outstanding work in 2009.
Reporter Sean Webby was named a finalist in investigative reporting by the Scripps Howard Foundation for stories on the San Jose Police Department. Webby wrote a series of stories that examined how arrests for minor crimes in San Jose often lead to violent confrontations between police and suspects.”
I for one am looking forward to seeing the numbers that the CPLE comes up with. I wonder if they will be allowed to view the use of force statistics that the IPA, Internal Affairs, and Mayor cannot or will not allow the public to see. If the CPLE study releases new information to the public, it will be a service.
But my guess is that it is just part of the SJPD’s public relations operation (with its protectsanjose blog and its sanjoseinside cheerleaders) that is being paid for with our tax dollars to assure us that it is safe to continue ignoring concerns about racial profiling and disproportionate arrest rates.
Here’s to a new openness in local government to provide the public with the data we need to understand the problems we face more fully, not public relations and marketing.
Downtownster,
Which part of the “ProtectSanJose” blog is being paid for with taxpayer dollars?
Ah, sorry. Just the CPLE study.
Hate to keep raining on you Downtownster. The CPLE study is being done at no cost to the city or taxpayer. That is one of the ways it maintains it self as an unbiased organization. They are privately funded and maintain that taking money from cities would undermine what they are doing. “searching for the facts” The police are not perfect my friend, but lets criticize using the actual facts and truth.
Case and point downtownster. You and the Merc it seems do not care about facts at all. Protectsanjose is funded 100% by dues out of members pockets.
I will give downtownster credit for being big enough to apologize and correct himself. That is something the Mercury would never do, which is why it lacks any credibility.
“Protectsanjose is funded 100% by dues out of members pockets”…which are crammed full of taxpayer’s dollars.
According to the CPLE website, the funding comes from foundations and universities, not the police they study. That actually sounds good. I withdraw my allegation of their funding by the city. I am still skeptical of the city’s motives after the debacle around the Mayor’s hiring of Chris Constantin (a cop, whose brother is SJPD) to be Independent Police Auditor last year.
In order to participate in CPLE, Police Departments agree to open their records to the researchers “to the best of the agency’s legal ability”.
http://cple.psych.ucla.edu/how-it-works/agreement-for-police-departments/
The SJPD’s practice of hiding the records on use of force, for example, has not been ruled illegal by a court, so it can hide those records from CPLE and claim that it would be opening its records “to the best of the agency’s legal ability”. CPLE would have to choose between:
a) demanding access to the the use of force and all other data because it is not “illegal” for SJPD to show those records to CPLE or the public
or
b) taking the SJPD’s word that those hidden records are irrelevant to the questions of racial profiling and racial disproportionality
I hope CPLE has some public records requests ready and lawyers standing by to crack open the SJPD files to let the sunshine in. But if the CPLE played that way, Chief Davis would never have invited them into his sandbox.
A CPLE report that includes only the “safe” data that the Independent Police Auditor currently uses to assure us that everything is fine would be equally useless to the public and equally useful for the SJPD’s brand management. That would indeed make the CPLE report part of the SJPD public relations campaign.
I applaud you downtownster for acknowledging a statement that was not accurate.
I would not worry to much about the CPLE not being able to get access to the use of force reports. I understood that the PD was giving them access to most all reports far greater that what is publicly available. Again this is an independent group that often brings to light not great things in the police departments it studies. This is not a group in bed with the police. If Dr Goff was not or does not get access he will say so and then we can squawk about it. So fat that is not the case.
As far as Chris Constantin we agree he was a bad choice. A bad choice only because of perception. He was a well respected city auditor who had his brother not been recently hired by SJPD would have been a great choice. The police independent auditor should be just that. Independent and an auditor not an activist.
You are very passionate about what you perceive to be a problem with the police. That is fine but it does not make for an actual independent look at the PD. Just as today we found out that some of your perceptions were not accurate. If there are real problems that an unbiased auditor will find them and bring the evidence forward.
Conversation is good downtownster thanks for engaging in it.