San Jose, BART police auditor programs a model for Sonoma County

A police officer stops you and orders you to sit down on the curb. Maybe you’re handcuffed. Eventually, you’re free to go.

After hearing complaints from people that these “limited detentions” were happening to black and Latino people far more often than white people, San Jose’s Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell decided it was time to suggest the Police Department get to the bottom of those accusations once and for all.

“People were saying it’s only because of our race. Police said we don’t do that, we don’t engage in race bias,” Cordell said. “These are perceptions on either side. I am pushing for the city to have an independent analysis.”

A citizen task force appointed to come up with a law enforcement oversight model that would work for Sonoma County is about to present a plan that is closely modeled after San Jose’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor and, to a lesser degree, the BART Office of the Independent Police Auditor program, formed in 2011.

The City of San Jose’s auditor recommendations are nonbinding - and they would also be nonbinding in Sonoma County - and a major function of the office is community outreach. What San Jose’s office has accomplished is instructive as to what might be possible here.

Cordell is a uniquely outspoken individual. When she was appointed by the city in 2010, critics wondered whether the former judge with ties to civil rights groups would be able to work well with police.

Three years into the job, Cordell has pushed the city to allow her to release more details about highly guarded misconduct complaint investigations but also worked with police to start a TV program called “Make the Call, San José!” featuring unsolved homicides as a way to encourage people to come forward and help the Police Department solve those crimes.

“We are all pitching in as a community to solve crimes,” Cordell said. “It shows we’re not haters. There are good things the police do and we want to help them do it.”

The experience in San Jose underscores the reality that the task force’s proposal, if taken up by Sonoma County supervisors, hinges on finding the right person to lead the auditor’s office.

“Who we hire is extremely important,” said Amber Twitchell, a task force member who runs a nonprofit that provides services for youth.

That person would have to balance earning credibility with the public while also working constructively with the Sheriff’s Office, said task force member and Sheriff’s Lt. Mark Essick.

“It’s going to be a tough job,” Essick said.

San Jose’s City Council voted to create an auditor program in 1992, the year after the video of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King generated community support and political will for civilian oversight.

Since the city’s first auditor was appointed in 1994, the program’s recommendations have sped up the timeline for complaint investigations, altered policies for Taser use, changed how blood is drawn from arrestees and added a mediation alternative that has enabled citizens to talk through an incident with the police officer involved.

In 2004, San Jose police shot and killed a 25-year-old Vietnamese woman holding a vegetable peeler, prompting outrage in the Vietnamese community. That led the police auditor at the time to push to be included in the immediate response to officer-involved shootings. The Police Department eventually adopted a policy to notify and brief the auditor about the incident immediately after a shooting.

Today, Cordell, an assistant director, two analysts and an office specialist form the auditor’s office. The department’s current annual budget is nearly $1.2 million. Cordell is paid about $175,000.

The auditor’s 2013 annual report gives a detailed account of the program’s activities in the diverse city that just surpassed 1 million people.

People filed 357 complaints against police personnel during that year. The auditor agreed with the internal investigations for 76 percent of those findings. In 6 percent of cases, 13 total, the auditor disagreed with the department’s findings, meaning the audit determined the investigation and findings were not thorough, objective and fair.

That year, the auditor program got large posters up on buses that give a phone number for anyone with concerns about a San Jose police officer.

Auditor staff painstakingly report on the hours they spend doing community outreach, highlighting events geared toward people of color, immigrants and youth.

Cordell said in a recent interview that people who file complaints deserve to learn more about the process than the typical response, which she described as a letter with either “unsustained” or another simple disposition that gives little insight into how that was determined or what, if any, discipline came of it.

“There is too much confidentiality when it comes to officer complaints,” Cordell said. “In California, it’s just one big secret and it’s appalling.”

The BART auditor program was formed in 2011 in response to the 2009 New Years Day shooting of Oscar Grant, which led to the criminal conviction of Officer Johannes Mehserle for involuntary manslaughter. The auditor has the authority to conduct investigations into complaints, unlike in San Jose, and works alongside a Citizen Review Board.

BART Police Auditor Mark P. Smith, an attorney who previously worked for the Los Angeles Police Department’s Office of Inspector General and the Chicago Independent Police Review Authority, is paid about $166,150 and the office budget is about $650,000. It has three full-time employee positions.

Since 2013, the auditor program has made six recommendations to the Police Department. Smith said that none has been formally adopted, although some are in process, such as new guidelines on interactions with transgender people, and others have been informally in practice in certain situations.

Smith said that there is no simple way to measure his office’s effectiveness because a big part of the job is to foster community relationships and educate the public, in addition to being a police watchdog.

“A lot of what we do is based on trust, which is hard to measure,” Smith said. “Is the community feeling trust toward police? Do they have confidence that if they file a complaint that it will be handled appropriately? That is hard to put on a spreadsheet.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.