Mercury News Editorial
Posted: 10/19/2009 08:31:30 PM PDT
Updated: 10/19/2009 08:57:03 PM PDT
There's no need to speculate about the difference that more openness would make in building trust between the San Jose police and the community. The sad case of Daniel Pham is a classic example playing out in real time. It's no coincidence that the audience for tonight's city council debate on increasing public access to police records will be dotted with Pham T-shirts and signs.
Pham was the knife-wielding, mentally ill man who was shot by officers May 10 after 911 calls brought them to a Berryessa home. Last week a Santa Clara County grand jury declined to indict the officers, but that was cold comfort to a Vietnamese American community primed to think the worst: Memories of the controversial police killing six years earlier of Bich Cau Thi Tran, a diminutive woman wielding a large vegetable peeler, are still fresh.
There were many differences between these cases. We suspect that if the police had swiftly released more information in the Pham case — and if District Attorney Dolores Carr had followed her predecessor's practice of making grand jury proceedings public in cases of high public interest — this controversy would be behind us.
The city council tonight will discuss a recommendation by the Sunshine Reform Task Force, which includes a Mercury News representative, to release many police reports and 911 tapes and increase reporting of police statistics. The recommendation includes broad exemptions for sensitive cases, such as rape and domestic violence reports, and calls for redacting information in all reports that could endanger witnesses or inhibit investigations. It should be adopted.
Mayor Chuck Reed and the rules and open government committee have proposed limited rules to ensure that police meet current state guidelines on releasing information. But some open government advocates believe Reed's plan could be used to limit information rather than encourage openness.
Reed has said 911 tapes should be released in some instances, which would be better than the current zero release policy, and he said the Pham tapes should be public after the grand jury met. He needs to follow through.
Had the tapes been released, it might be clear what police knew going into the situation, including Pham's mental state and the level of danger they could expect. The police report might lay out other circumstances that would help people understand what happened.
And while San Jose doesn't control Carr's decision on grand juries, an open proceeding would have shown whether evidence was presented fully.
In the Pham case, more openness very likely would have meant less anger. But even when releasing reports shows problems with police conduct, it benefits the department. When public drunkenness reports released by the city showed there was little justification for many of those arrests, the number plunged. The result over time will be greater public trust.
Revealing more, and doing more work in public, is always hard at first. But over time, it pays off. That's why the city council should approve the Sunshine Reform Task Force proposal tonight.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13597946?nclick_check=1
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