Tag: jon koenig

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Cop (Part 3/4)

Devon Thames

The REPUDIATION OF RACE: Modern day policing descended from the 1760’s initiation of the slave patrol—their fundamental function was to keep black slaves oppressed and in their place through apprehension, discipline and terrorization. To work on a slave patrol was considered a civic duty, much as policing is today. Slavery may have taken a bow to the 13th amendment, but remnants of the institution are still allowed to persevere. African Americans are still disproportionately targeted more so than other races.

Surely there is still an advantage to race supremacy in police culture. Much like the recent incidents in Minnesota and South Carolina, news surfaced in June by The Medium, (a watchdog group) of retired and current San Jose Police officers utilizing a Facebook page to air racist comments towards Muslims and Blacks, those they viewed as the noxious variety. California is among 14 states identified by the FBI where officers have been observed actively participating in white supremacy groups. A disconcerting sort of Blue Nationalism where those inclined are cops first—and husbands, daughters, parents—or any other societal member—thereafter.

In 2016, white officers represented nearly 72% of law enforcement (and in 2019, 43% of the San Jose police), and though their numbers are declining, they’re still the largest racial group represented in policing. While that percentage may have altered, policing is still a white, male sport—and perhaps even more so a state of mind. Chauvin was white —and without rank, but years of experience, he dominated the scene of Floyd’s murder. (If slave patrollers failed in the slave duties, they faced retribution, something to consider when judging the actions of the other three officers.) But do non-white officers, through indoctrination, develop white cop state of mind. Decades post the civil war, a minimal amount of blacks were permitted to join exclusively white police departments because they were thought to control blacks better, but were not readily allowed to arrest whites. Police departments of today may be the greatest connection to the heinous traditions of the Jim Crow era—and may be the reason so much of the privileged cheer them on.

DEFUNDING THE POLICE is a logical aspiration—meant not to be the first but final step of resounding change for all. In 2019, the city of San Jose made the better part of its annual public safety budget (45%) rain on the police department’s luxury brick and mortar. Most cities budgets pay a hefty hostage fee too but I remember hearing a rumor back 2008—during the national recession—that while the bureaucratic department members were taking pay cuts and furloughs, our police union had negotiated pay raises. The concept of taking one for the team doesn’t apply when you’re a cop. This situation would lead to a huge pension battle between the department and our then mayor, Chuck Reed. It looked like the most calculated revolt of all time. Eligible officers rushed to retirement while others took up offers at neighboring departments eager to pick up the scraps. Officers saw demotions, recruitment declined and there had even been an allegation claiming an officer instructed a class of recruits to apply someplace else after finishing the academy.

Mayor Sam Liccardo

Most importantly, morale declined. The attenuated department showed a decrease in response to calls, accenting their despair by mobilizing personalized RV campers in the department lots, claiming officers were so overworked, they used the convenience of an oversized, empty lot to sleep in their personal pricey RV’s. While pensions improved, salaries rose and city/department negotiations restored the quality of blue lives, the pricey mobile living facilities once meant to capture the attention of bleeding-heart citizens are still there.

But! I hear the reasons to defund and raise you some examples. In researching police calls conducted by the San Jose Police, calls involving a mentally ill subject became as cringe worthy as taking motor oil for a cold. On February 11, 2015, a distraught 23-year-old man choose the SJPD as his method of suicide, calling them to his home with the fabricated story of an intruder. It’s hard to contend that police can be more than a Jack Kavorkian invention to end life—despite CIT training, and I think law enforcement would agree, as long as the admission did not mean turning away extra government change.

Officer Wakana Okuma

I’ve watched San Jose Police Officer Chris Jolliff wrestle a clearly mentally ill, transient woman to the ground in handcuffs. I once called in a scene where a homeless man walked into a church and punched a man, unprovoked, sitting calmly next to him. Watching Officer David Sanchez (former SJPD) do what he was trained to do—as he pinned the disheveled, and clearly mentally ill man to the back of his car—felt sorely counterproductive. They needed help these officers were incapable of giving them—and death is not a remedy. Could a common-sense plan to reallocate funds by 2015 prevented Officer Wakana Okuma from shooting a bipolar 19-year-old wielding a painted drill in front of her father’s home? A number of these shooting end up in million-dollar settlements—monetary doses that could have served a prophylactic plan rather than an appraisal estimate on a person’s life. But even with recent changes implemented by departments across the country (San Jose included), the solution may continue to be a near miss—none of those dead should have met a cop that day.

AND THEN THERE’S THE KICKING AND SCREAMING. By law, cops can’t strike—but they can mobilize and delay, consequently monopolize public safety—a common practice synonymous with the Blue Flu, a concept very easily applied when the general public doesn’t know, understand, or care how you do your job. Delay of call response is a claim attributed to high call volume—and a low number of available officers. However, in San Jose, it’s never been uncommon to see too many officers at one incident, making some calls or debrief meetings look more like a holiday party. Call response for us is still an issue despite SJPD’s influx in hiring numbers. I recall one sunny afternoon, when a call went out over my radio while studying inside a coffee shop. One of the two officers dispatched (we’ll call him Officer Cano) sat feet away from me on the other side of glass. I watched him sip coffee for 18 minutes with a woman before he finally departed for the call. The reality is that delays happen because they’re permitted to, and it happens a lot, for both valid—and not so valid reasons.

San Jose is one of many corrupt police departments across the country—something I was warned about by a career journalist and those familiar with the department while attending university.  Now being able to confirm it, I’m left to ask: Is that a bad thing—particularly to those governing the department? I’m sure members of the POA and those flipping burgers over a grill at officer hosted bar-b-ques I once had the pleasure of attending as a youth would say no—perhaps preferring to give “corrupt” a more inoffensive label. Maybe “pride”—and self-perseverance, the selling points drawing recruits through the door.

Chris Jolliff and David Sanchez are two very different officers, who conducted themselves contrastively (I’ve observed both and interviewed one). To generalize the quality of both—only to list them in the default category of ‘good cops’, would be a degradation to one, by the other—especially when not keen to their entire histories. Outside of this moment of clarity, the analysis of all departments and all officers cannot be ubiquitous but the expectations of them can be—and still a uniform remedy is called for.

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.