Santa Rosa police auditor: Change internal investigations process

The Santa Rosa Police Department is changing how it conducts its internal personnel investigations, from allegations of officer misconduct to use of force, as part of a push by a civilian auditor hired by the city to improve its police services.

Based on the recommendation of the auditor, Palo Alto-based attorney Bob Aaronson, the department has created a new professional standards unit to conduct the most serious internal investigations, a move designed to build a layer of separation between officers and supervisors investigating their actions and to promote more thorough reviews into incidents.

Aaronson has been working behind the scenes at the department for about 16 months and today will present to the City Council a report on his work, a first glimpse of what independent police oversight might provide the city. His 17-page report gives little detail about the personnel investigations he’s reviewed and what they reveal about the department.

The creation of a professional standards unit was his strongest recommendation.

“I think the department is doing really well, but there are some real challenges in front of it. Some of the challenges are internal, some of the challenges are external,” Aaronson said.

While Aaronson described how he spent his time over the past year - about 66 hours riding with officers in the field, reviewing 310 videos from officer body cameras - his report gives no detail about what he observed.

Aaronson said in the report he’s looked into “about half a dozen incidents and some officer behaviors that I’ve found troubling,” but he noted California law prohibits him from elaborating on the specific details of those events.

He also provides no information about the nature of complaints and how they were resolved. Aaronson said he agreed with every single conclusion reached by the department’s internal investigations into:

88 personnel complaints,

58 internal use of force reviews,

9 pursuit reviews,

6 vehicle accident reviews, and

3 firearm discharge reviews.

Aaronson said he didn’t provide information about how the 2016 complaints were resolved because he believes that information should be provided by the Police Department.

From 2013 through 2015, Santa Rosa police received on average 84 complaints each year, according to the department’s annual report for 2015. Of those, 20 percent were sustained and 63 percent were unfounded. The remaining 17 percent were listed as either inconclusive, exonerated or resolved.

Police Chief Hank Schreeder said the department is still compiling data on the resolution of 2016 internal investigations.

Aaronson was hired in 2015, just as Sonoma County was poised to announce its first independent law enforcement auditor for the Sheriff’s Office, Jerry Threet.

The two auditors, heading up the first civilian oversight of policing programs on the North Coast, were established in the aftermath of the 2013 shooting of Santa Rosa middle school student Andy Lopez by a sheriff’s deputy, an event that sparked renewed calls for independent review of police personnel investigations. Nationally, civilian oversight programs have been gaining ground and were a key recommendation for improving police-community relations by the Obama administration’s groundbreaking “President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” report on police reform.

Without context for the types of complaints and how they were resolved, the public gains little from having an auditor, said LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge and the former police auditor in San Jose, who is an outspoken proponent of civilian oversight of law enforcement.

Cordell said successful auditor programs provide as much detail as the law allows when it comes to troubling incidents, misconduct, trends and the results of investigations. Strong programs also conduct extensive outreach in the community, she said.

“History shows us when there is sunshine, there is less likely to be corruption. It’s especially important for policing that there be accountability,” Cordell said.

Aaronson said he’s met with more than a dozen community members and attended seven meetings with community groups.

Schreeder said Aaronson is embedded in the department with an office and full access to personnel, body camera videos, reports and other information. Schreeder said he feels Aaronson has been successful by helping them see procedures, such as complaint investigations, with fresh eyes and incorporate new ideas.

“I’d make the argument that him being integrated into the department, he has access to everything in the department, including internal investigations, makes him more of a change agent within the organization,” Schreeder said.

Aaronson is an attorney who has served as police auditor in Santa Cruz and Davis for 14 and 11 years, respectively, and has previously conducted internal affairs audits for other law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County, Anaheim, Fresno and Modesto. He works part-time for Santa Rosa on a contractual basis.

Aaronson said the professional standards unit remains the department’s greatest challenge because it is still being formed and the investigator’s roles and responsibilities are still being defined. It will be a primary focus of his work over the next year, he added, to further define its mission and address what he described as an “error rate” with internal investigations. He did not elaborate on the errors.

“I’m also encouraging them to create a formal system for issues that only rise to the level of training and retraining issues - the stuff that doesn’t rise to the level of misconduct,” Aaronson said.

Aaronson said he views the biggest external challenges for the department are the large volume of calls involving homeless-related issues and the lingering community unrest over the Lopez shooting.

“I remain quite concerned that the conflict that surfaced after Andy Lopez’s death has not been resolved and will resurface as soon as another similarly troubling incident occurs. Some of the most polarized people, who still protest on a regular basis, feel like they’ve never really been heard,” he wrote.

Aaronson spent on average of 50 hours per month in Santa Rosa in 2016. This year, his monthly fee increased from $6,000 per month to $11,000 per month, not to exceed $132,000 per year, for between 40 and 45 hours per month in Santa Rosa, according to a February memo from Aaronson to City Manager Sean McGlynn. The amount covers travel and lodging for Aaronson to stay in Santa Rosa during the week.

The city first hired Aaronson in 2014 to provide a one-time analysis of how the department investigates citizen complaints and other internal investigation practices.

For the county, attorney Jerry Threet manages an independent office with a budget of $827,000. Threet and his staff conduct significant public outreach, attending community meetings and gathering public input about public perceptions of law enforcement, and they meet with a citizen advisory council convened to help him communicate and connect with the public.

Schreeder acknowledged Aaronson’s work is less transparent than other models because Aaronson’s primary focus is to improve the department’s inner workings.

Aaronson has described his approach to police auditing as working within a department, and he often uses the metaphor of noticing a friend’s pants zipper is down at a party: “I can shout this or I can walk over and whisper in your ear.” He takes the whisper approach.

Santa Rosa city Councilwoman Julie Combs said Aaronson’s findings felt like a “baseline report” that lacked detail and context.

“I want to know how often and why the zipper is down and whether they’re training officers to zip it back up and I don’t see that in this report,” Combs said.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.