PD Editorial: After the demonstrations, watching for police reform

Protesters poured into Santa Rosa streets in the days and weeks after a white Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy shot a Latino teenager named Andy Lopez.

The demonstrations were peaceful, yet panicky officials locked the doors to City Hall and canceled a City Council meeting on short notice. A few weeks later, police tried to block protesters from entering a council meeting.

In the aftermath, the city created a high-level job dedicated to community engagement.

The position has turned over several times.

The city also hired a police auditor, an outside lawyer to evaluate internal operations and individual incidents.

That post has been vacant for almost two years.

This past week, in the wake of a new round of racial justice demonstrations, this one in response to stomach-turning video of a white Minneapolis cop killing a Black man, the city of Santa Rosa kicked off another effort to foster better community relations, coupled with a review of Police Department funding and responsibilities.

It would be easy to write off the “community empowerment plan” as one more high-profile announcement, one more special committee — one more example of process without much progress. But we think that would be a mistake.

Santa Rosa has a new city manager, a new police chief and a revamped City Council since the Andy Lopez demonstrations in 2013. They insist they want results.

“It’s not a one and done, it’s not one policy issue,” said Chris Rogers, one of three City Council members elected since 2016. “It is an ongoing systemic change that we are committed to.”

The city just filled its community engagement manager vacancy, hiring Magali Telles, the executive director of Los Cien, an active and influential Latino business and leadership organization. Telles’ arrival will raise the profile of the position, and her background and connections lend credibility to the city’s outreach efforts.

Police Chief Ray Navarro, meanwhile, is expediting a program to quantify and stamp out any racial profiling in Santa Rosa. Navarro, who kneeled with young Black Lives Matter demonstrators, banned the use of a controversial chokehold, and he promised to investigate complaints that some of his officers used excessive force during last month’s demonstrations.

“An independent investigator will be assigned to some of these incidents,” Navarro told the editorial board last week. “We feel it’s important to be completely transparent. If something arises, we will address it.”

If the city is serious about transparency, it needs to hire a new police auditor or establish some other form of independent oversight.

Navarro wants the city to fill the auditor job, and he promised to provide wide-ranging access to internal reports and police staff. He credited the former auditor, Bob Aaronson, with making valuable recommendations about professional standards and other subjects.

The auditor gets paid out of the police budget but answers to City Manager Sean McGlynn, giving the watchdog some independence from the Police Department.

Finally, the City Council has appointed a public safety subcommittee to review police policies. The panel listened to hours of public testimony during its initial meeting last week. It should continue to hold regular public meetings to share its findings and collect public input.

The recent demonstrations, like the ones after the death of Andy Lopez, pushed police reform and race relations to the top of the agenda, in Santa Rosa and across the country. The hard work of finding solutions is getting started at City Hall. We’ll be watching for progress. You should, too.

You can send a letters to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com.