Tag: Chief Eddie Garcia

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Cop (Part 2/4)

Devon Thames

In June, New York Police Benevolent Association president, Mike O’Meara, stood before the press against a back drop of his fellow officers—and in his best rendition of the The Elephant Man’s ‘I am not an animal’ speech—querulously denounced the notion he and his colleagues should be seen as boogeymen to be feared. Footage began to emerge of faceless officers in riot gear assaulting press, peaceful protestors and the violent agitators shadowing them. Right wing pundits conveniently conflated the victims of black-on-black crime with police shootings, making wild deplorables the common denominator. And like sweet gas lighting preserves, officers were able to eclipse reality through voicing fear of violent retributions against them for “doing their jobs”—while a McIntosh Sheriff’s deputy broke down into the lens of her iPhone, debating the fate of her egg McMuffin in this social climate. A viral video better suited—perhaps, for the officers who actively soil her badge.

San Jose’s own chief Eddie Garcia had been confronted with an incident on May 29th in which a goading officer shot a life altering rubber bullet at peaceful protestor, inflicting internal damage. Garcia responded with disappointment but was quick to praise officer Jared Yuen as a “good kid”. I wondered if Garcia’s praise would have been so solicitous had one of his sons been at the receiving end of that rubber bullet, possibly rendering him unable to bare a grandchild. Garcia later apologized for the comment after backlash.

Perhaps it’s the inability to draw a line bolder and more defined than the established blue one—lest it not be the fault of police—but of those who empower and enable them to run unleashed. San Jose’s Mayor, Sam Liccardo, has drowned out his own proposals for procedural change of police with an unmerited and highly deceptive comment proclaiming most SJPD officers to be good. The former district attorney has clearly never had a frank chat with our city’s two former Police Auditors, LaDoris Cordell and Aaron Zisser—two individuals who have reviewed the most heinous of (and mostly unpunished) accusations against officers, including the supporting evidence. 

What I see in Liccardo can also be seen in those holding decisive position on police power, with common resistance to rock a boat of policing change into uncharted territory—the possibility of dire chaos. It will be the diligently naïve and intransigent public whose hesitation—or toe dipping—into a most perfect policing system—that will only encourage a more unethical chaos, breeding toxic cops. As a country, we are slow to needed progression. The conclusion of slavery (the very workforce this country was built on) wavered and contenged on the colonial fears of the disenfranchisement and financial upheaval it would cause to the lives of slave owners. Lincoln took a begrudged leap of common sense (among other things) towards progress and reform—and while results of that decision have not quite finalized, it has progressively materialized a better and more righteous union.

Despite the condemnation and distancing of ranking officers scrambling for damage control, they stop short of relinquishing the long-standing impunity officers enjoy. Perhaps it wasn’t the death of Floyd prompting a defiance of themselves, but the reaction his death garnered. Most of the officers I’ve spoken with over the past ten years would relate to Chauvin and Co.—and the decisive conduct inculcated with their profession’s high school-like peer pressure. They understand why not one officer intervened, but critical of Officer Thoa’s inability to intimidate on-lookers out of their first amendment right to spy. Why wasn’t one of the officers holding a digital blocker to prevent filming? And officer Chauvin—who killed in the light of day what a simple police flashlight could have blocked from cameras in the black of night.

By fall, it seemed the wave of change was no wave at all. Proponents of police and—more discretely—white supremacy, have, if anything, grown emboldened by the images of Floyd’s murder. Republican senators such as Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) walked away from the event with the opinion that police needed more power through legislation.

The Minneapolis Police union vowed to see the reinstatement of Floyd’s 3 remaining killers—before they too had been indicted alongside Chauvin.  Three Wilmington, North Carolina officers were fired after a recording captured the use of racist language and their desire for a race war. Three Aurora, Colorado officers photographed themselves mocking the murder of Elijah McClain at the sight of his death–so reminiscent of the days when hung black men were photographed and sold on post cards in the Deep South. And in a tribute to the nefarious lineage of racism running through the bloodline of policing—the New York City POA’s unsettling endorsement of notorious birther, Donald J. Trump.

Social media sites belonging to the family and friends of local officers went either silent or flagrantly indignant to the vitriolic public interrogations their loved ones faced.  Ignorance runs rampant within those close to officers, blind—and at times injudicious because the blood of the black and the disenfranchised stains different on a police uniform. Is it only in the criminality of a cop when his purpose is maintained?

It takes incredible audacity to wear membership to the murders of Botham Jean, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Stephon Clark, Philando Castillo and Alton Sterling—or to the negligent handling of Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and Akai Gurley—only to then claim officers are the truly misunderstood victims of these crimes. A Modus Operandi magic trick eliciting sympathy from the public that they are far more oppressed than those they silence—through no amount of rationality but plenty of entitlement.

Lynching victim Will Brown in life, and in death, year 1919. (source nebraskastudies.org)

During her time, it was the likes of Jesse Washington (a mentally ill youth), Will Brown, Marie Thompson, Mark Charles Parker—and the 3,446 dead by 1968 for their melanin deformity—who compelled journalist Ida B. Wells to state in 1909: “This is the never-varying answer of lynchers and their apologist. All know that it is untrue. The cowardly lynchers revels in murder, then seeks to shield himself from public execration by claiming devotion to woman. But truth is mighty and the lynching record discloses the hypocrisy of the lyncher as well as his crime.” Simply replace “devotion to woman” with more modern claims such as “I thought he had a gun”, same shit—different century.

If only those typified within the words of Well’s had existed at a better time and place—a decade later, I say the same of the black and brown today.

While researching this piece I recalled the murder of Daniel Shaver, a white plumber from Granbury, Texas who the nation watched—through the lens of a body camera—beg for his life before being mercilessly obliterated by a Mesa, Texas cop in a hotel hallway. These are the things nightmares are made of—the parental fear President Obama (a black man) and Mayor Bill DeBlasio (the father of a black man) express out loud against criticism. These executions are the quiet part being spoken out loud—lauding distortedly depths of depravity as acts of bravery by sworn men.  Murder isn’t murder. Privilege isn’t bad. Injustice is justice. We are to revere officers as human beings yet we are coached to survive a police encounter by way of our local bear attack survival guide.

How many officers, standing in the wings gauge their invincibility against the biblical ‘shall nots’? Officer Philip Brailsford was acquitted of Shaver’s murder in 2017 and reinstated to his department. He has reportedly since retired.

The accurate intent of law enforcement is to be the resolute factor of a situation, not the incendiary of it. One is not supposed to determine the decisions of a cop and therefore should not be blamed for the escalation of their behavior. And until this is realized, one shall not be shamed for their fear of those who claim the image of hero but the disposition of monster. And a department’s bill of guilt shall not be paid by the tax paying public—but to be made clear, those irrational enough to think that taking a police officer’s life is an appropriate reply to police brutality will find themselves working against any logical, mature solution!

Bad cops make for the best criminal justice instructors, because when listened to with a sensible ear–they tell the truth. An officer’s firearm training–I once presumed–at best called for the temporary incapacitation of a life—which to that, in 2011, a senior San Jose police officer shook his head. “You wanna take out the computer”, he said—taping a finger to his temple.

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Cop (4/4)

Devon Thames
San Jose Police officers Eliseo Malvido and Jonathan Koenig during an arrest in July, 2015.

Among the SOLUTIONS?  If a national or local data base is implemented, this will just result in fewer sustained complaints being issued by internal affairs divisions—either out of fear for the reputation of the department or of the officer himself. The percentage of believed allegations against police officers are already disturbing low—2% of 887 allegations against SJPD were sustained in 2019, 5% of 770 in 2018, 10% of 697 in 2017—disturbing particularly if the public saw the level of evidence towards an officer’s guilt that is ignored. The disturbing part—in my opinion—is the cognizance officers have of their system. A department of officers will gossip about the latest cop to get a slap, and a group discussion of how better not to get caught and suffer a similar fate. Though sustainments are knowingly rare, no officer wants to be that cop that got sustained that year.

In San Jose, the Independent Police Auditor cannot override the final decision of Internal Affairs, though they claim they can run their disagreement to the mayor and the city manager (both of whom have no police experience) like quarreling children running to a teacher.

I’ve had an officer sustained and it is a bittersweet point of recognition in police misconduct. And what anyone from lawyers and judges, to community activist will tell you is that it is a ‘unicorn moment’ and unjustly rare. Reprimands are based on a preponderance of evidence (not beyond a reasonable doubt) and so much more. A sustainment has to be convenient, unavoidable, and uncostly to the department. As a city, we long for a community board void of political oversight and enough fire power to issue the stern judgement a conflict-ridden Internal Affairs cannot.  Where conflict of interest isn’t a factor in the review of an officer’s conduct.

IN CONCLUSION, we live in a country that has abolished slavery, struck down segregation, given women the right to vote and (reluctantly) the right to choose—we are a country as slow to embrace common sense as we are to progression.

The first step is acknowledgement that we don’t know the ratio of bad cops to good cops (I oppose categorical titles in policing but I’ll address that in another blog post). There are far more bad cops than the law enforcement community would grant you to believe (ahem-gaslighting). I have learned after ten years of research that when I encounter a new officer, I need to be cautious—but fair.

Accountability implies the existence of integrity, and is a word police need NOT be bothered with. The supreme court and law makers need to be bombarded with the term police liability—and end Qualified Immunity. The medical industry has had its own ethical issues but doctors are held to the highest of standards and tend to make every professional decision as if their life depends on it—and it’s because their license most certainly does. The prestigiousness of the medical community is contingent on their ability to do a job few others are trained to accomplish. Nobody flies a flag for them when they leave instruments inside a body or argues that the bar for a doctor’s expectations should be lowered so we don’t discourage people from the profession. Doctors are praised for their ability to do a hard job right! So when it comes to police, a lowered bar will attract the less desirables (aka, liabilities). A place where departments— not tax payers—foot violation settlements. There is a world where police are capable of much more.

What I wish the public would do is educate themselves more about the actual practice of policing. I studied the SJPD for ten years because I loved the research, despite dealing with intimidation and some extremely dangerous officers. The police calls, the interviewing of officers, the explanation of the job through their eyes—all rare and enriching beyond reason. I appreciated learning how useless a criminal justice degree was or the proper procedure for off-duty officers to get out of traffic citations. Even when it came to the point of death threats from the department, it allowed me to see the true face of policing. I wish people would take the time to understand policing and understand it is not a field of nobility but of unprecedented moral turpitude—perhaps it takes a criminal to catch a criminal. I just wish this was admitted.

And lastly, bad cops are not the only problem. Judges, district attorneys, attorney generals (like Kentucky’s Daniel Cameron), the city attorneys who represent them, and unbothered city officials harbor in the back pockets of the police, ready to aid. It is the collective malfeasance that permits such misconduct, and if I had the ear of law enforcement, I’d urge those to embrace the retribution uproar as a road to constructive reform.

But in the process of doing this, one must realize the great injustice we impose upon police officers in our great nation. One never volunteers for discipline but cries out for it through conduct. The liability of police officers and departments needs to be higher. Too many allow ignorance to fill a void common sense leaves behind and those who know don’t want it to change—for the privilege of unlawfulness is too enticing. Limits need to set, laws of conduct established, consequences made clear, and an uncompromised ear needs to listen!

I would like to thank those who have risked their lives (the six-year-olds, the soccer moms, the college students, etc.), who lawfully protested and raised a voice this year in tribute to the unintentional Americans who lost theirs. From the slave ships, the nooses hung from fruit trees, to the Breanna Taylor’s and George Floyd’s. There will be more Strange Fruit to come.

Article 1: Uncle Eddy

Devon Thames
The last four chiefs of the San Jose Police Department: (left to right) Christopher Moore, Larry Esquivel, Eddie Garcia, and Robert Davis. (San Police Police)

2020 will probably be the year of hibernation as we “shelter-in-place” in our respective corners. Some are finding the fortitude to count what they still have control over, while others are using this time to regroup. My need to regroup has involved appreciating the silver linings in the stories of skies clearing over parts of the world, or that endangered turtles are multiplying. It’s been completing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, while shuffling through Dua Lipa tracks (Caution by The Killers has also been on loop). Lastly, regrouping has meant working on research for my first book, which somehow makes this whole Coronavirus feel like a pro and con.

Here’s a fact about me: I love horror films…have since I was kid. There’s something about watching a Zombie terrorizing a girl on a boat dock that makes you feel a little better about the scary things in your life. While recently binge-watching old episodes of Tales from the Crypt, I came across an episode that hit a little too close to home for me—it became a reminder that it was time to blog. (And please excuse the length of this one!)

Chief Robert Davis

The season two, episode twenty-one segment is titled Mute Witness to a Murder. As a sexual assault survivor, this episode hit a cord with me in the same way recent releases such as the film Invisible Man (2020) and the Fox News scandal biopic, Bombshell (2019) had. Actress Patricia Clarkson played a woman who witnesses a murder outside her home, in which the trauma renders her mute. Her husband proceeds to seek medical attention for her from a doctor who also happens to be the murderer. After convincing her husband that Clarkson is not sane or self-reliant, the doctor manages to isolate her in a padded room, rendering her helpless while terrorizing her in the subtlest of ways. He tells her she is in a place of restraint, in a sanitarium he is the director of, and that he is labeling her as a ‘dangerous psychotic’; and that he is doing this because she witnessed his crime. I’ve heard those type of words before. And it always puts me in a screaming panic.

But let me start from the beginning.

In August 2009, circumstances were laid into place for me to investigate the concept of social issues within law enforcement. I soon found myself with a subject police department, a small sample group of police officers from said department, and the opportunity to alter my beliefs on the concept of policing. This would be a boot camp of sorts, coinciding with the conclusion of my journalism degree, and subsequently becoming my degree emphasis.

Ten years ago, I never would have imagined blogging about the subject of policing or my experience with this department, nor did I think I’d have enough for a book. I had planned to produce a few articles and move on. This blog will serve as a companion to my research and reflective work (my book) on the San Jose Police department.

Chief Chris Moore

San Jose is the tenth largest city in the US with a population just spilling over a million as of 2019, but it’s known as a ‘connector’ city. Nobody plans a family trip to San Jose unless they have someone, or something, here to visit. Maybe you’re connecting a flight here or renting a car to drive to San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or Sacramento–because the flight was cheaper or the road trip seemed enticing. But no one comes here as their getaway. We sit in the fundament of Silicon Valley, an hour south of San Francisco and a country mile north of that famous Gilroy Garlic. Oprah once reported San Jose as the city with the most eligible bachelors. Those self-proclaimed nerds you knew in high school, they’re here now. Yet, I’ve always called this place home.

And our dept…

The San Jose Police department does not rank in the top ten of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country. Still, I like to call this complex, yet comprehensible group the medium size department, even though it’s number of sworn officers have averaged about 1,151 over the past ten years.

Chief Larry Esquivel

Part of my upbringing was with this department where one of my parents worked as a forensic scientist for 30 years. As a child, I remember getting school absent excuse letters from the office of the chief on ‘Take Your Daughter to Work’ day. Shooting my first gun in the department firing range. Having a customized caricature drawn by San Jose State University professor (and former SJPD officer) Gil Zamora– the department criminal sketch artist from 1995 to 2011. Finger printed for the first time in the third grade, and hitching rides with school liaison Officer Washington to the department when I couldn’t get picked up from school on time. Snacks from the aged department cafeteria and blueberry muffins from the former city hall building across the street.

Memories of walking through the department gym to the top of the communication building to watch fourth of July fireworks…I’d been to just about every corner of that department building without a clue that I would one day be investigating the officers in there.

What does the uniform represent now? It’s hard to look at police the same as I once did. Maturity…Prestige…Nobility…Principled. But I only wipe away the words I can now say I witnessed one, or more than a few officers, obliterate.

This would be a slow forming story, a ride I was in the back seat of as I watched officer after officer take the wheel. Turning me into neighborhoods of reality I had previously only assumed fictional, rare and reserved for the cinematic.

You start from the top and dig south

Former San Jose police chiefs Robert Davis, Christopher Moore, and Larry Esquivel were the heads of this enlarged, yet seemingly little-known department. While current chief (and header of this blog) Eddie Garcia closes out this story. All four governed the department during the duration of my documented research. I have varying thoughts about each one, particularly because the conduct of a department always wears the face of its leader. When I reflect on things I’ve seen and heard, it doesn’t matter who the officer was who said or did it, it was always co-signed by the chief.

Each chief had their unique qualities:

  • Robert Davis (2004-2010) was a practicing Mormon and during his time as chief, once fasted during Ramadan, showing solidarity with the local Muslim community.
  • Chris Moore (2010-2012) was a former fire fighter and an active member of the California State Bar, not to mention highly educated.
  • Larry Esquivel (2012-2016), whose name I’ve grown determined to remember the correct spelling of, was a teen dad. All four officers started as beat cops with this department and worked their way up.

And Chief Eddie Garcia… he’s an officer I’m still getting know, and his depiction is already making sense to me:

Chief Eddie Garcia

Easier on the eyes than his predecessors, the Puerto Rican native, and former militant is the “jocular” cop with an athletic build and the simper of a used car salesmen. Not just a car salesman, but a used car salesman. For he has mandated the dreamed, cleaned department. Famous for his ingratiating, heroic one-liners–accredited for making the man behind aviator shades the sweetheart of the local press. The neighborhood Ice Cream Man rose the rainbow flag before the department headquarters that once harbored in shadows a transgendered officer over a decade ago. Even acting as a hood ornament on a police cruiser as it drove through the San Jose gay pride parade. Taking underprivileged kids toy shopping, Boba tea with citizen—I’m still waiting for the Afternoon Tea Party & Ladies’ Luncheon with the chief (tea hat and lacy white gloves required).

While his “man of people” one-liners happily wade in the waters of public judgement, it’s his efficacious, yet deceptively menacing selling point that an appeased, prioritized department, equals a happy, protected public– a rhetoric that floats effortlessly and without scrutiny. An underlying mindset seemingly supremacist in its most virile form as it echoes from department to department across our vast country. So, finger to lips.

What would I say about Uncle Eddie? Or Uncle Eddy? Chief Eddie Garcia is someone I’ve seen through the eyes of local media and in the flesh. A brief encounter at the closing of a town hall meeting where he flashed a congenial smiling to a group of us, thanking our attendance.  Within department walls, I’ve heard he’s an a**hole…but I take that with a grain of salt.  Stopping short of the bravery and boldness once exemplified by the departments most well-know and well revered chief, Joseph McNarmara, Garcia gives way to the cool boy adoration of his rank and file. But what would Uncle Eddy tell someone in a moment of full disclosure. What would a sectional in the department disclose or bring illumination to?  What happens in dark corners?

Vague claims are often made about the stature of law enforcement, and on the broadest of terms. This is something I’ve always been cognizant of—and if we are fortunate to see our closest source of law enforcement through rose colored glasses, we tend to assume the good is true, and bad images are just misinformation.  That pesky “one in the ninety-nine”. I grew up this way.

While the explanation of this blog’s title is simple, it spoke to me and the way I once felt about the officers I knew and my ignoramus in the endearment and integrity I once thought was implied with the uniform. A year in a half ago, I was following a lead related to an officer in this story. On the social media page of the daughter of another officer, an old post remained, its innocence stuck with me. A photo of both men in uniform receiving an accolade with a caption attached: “Congratulations to my daddy…and my Uncle Eddy”.

Till next time.