The City Council rejected a proposal by La Mesa’s police chief to create an advisory body with no independence and no review or investigative powers.
Blog note: this article references a grand jury report.
The La Mesa City Council on Tuesday voted to create an 11-member citizens task force that will study various types of police oversight groups and seek input from the public on which one would work best in the city.
Before taking that vote, the council rejected a recommendation from La Mesa Police Chief Walt Vasquez, who proposed setting up a citizens advisory panel that he said would “serve as a conduit between the community and the Police Department,” but would not have the authority to investigate, review or audit police.
Vasquez’s proposal was the result of a January directive from the council to study civilian oversight methods in cities with populations comparable to La Mesa.
The directive came at a time when the department was facing questions over its investigation of an incident in which a white La Mesa police officer was recorded throwing a black 17-year-old girl to the ground twice at Helix High School in January 2018.
Two years earlier, the San Diego County Grand Jury recommended that La Mesa and other cities in the region create their own citizen review boards after the grand jury had received complaints from citizens in several cities without oversight boards who “felt there was inadequate resolution of their grievances.” The grand jury report did not specify if any of those complaints came from La Mesa residents.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Vasquez, the police chief, said an advisory panel could provide input on police practices and policy, and increase transparency. According to a report prepared by the La Mesa Police Department, the advisory panel would not have been “involved in the review of internal investigations or the imposition of discipline.”
It would have looked like Chula Vista’s Community Advisory Committee or San Diego’s Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations, which are bodies that provide advice on police policies and procedures, but do not investigate complaints or give advice or impose disciplinary actions.
A report prepared by the La Mesa Police Department shows the attributes of various local police oversight boards, as well as the Los Angeles Police Department model. La Mesa police Chief Walt Vasquez recommended an advisory panel for La Mesa with no review or investigative powers, much like Chula Vista’s Community Advisory Committee.
(City of La Mesa)
Several residents who’ve advocated for an independent police oversight commission that would have review or investigative powers —like San Diego’s Community Review Board on Police Practices, or the county’s Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board — blasted the chief’s recommendation for being too weak and not taking into account community input.
“A betrayal of public trust has occurred in the city of La Mesa as a result of this proposed resolution,” Janet Castaños told the council members while they were still considering the police chief’s proposal.
Castaños is on the board of the civic engagement group La Mesa Conversations, which hosted a forum in May to discuss police oversight.
“This resolution, that is supposedly focused on increasing community involvement, was developed by city officials without any involvement from citizens of our diverse La Mesa community,” Castaños said.
La Mesa resident Jack Shu worked in law enforcement as part of his career as a state parks superintendent and has been advocating for the creation of a police oversight board along with Castaños and others.
He called the chief’s initial proposal “an insult to the people who have been working on this issue,” and both he and Castaños said they would have no interest serving on an advisory board with no independence and no review or investigative power.
After hearing from about a half-dozen speakers opposed to the chief’s proposal — as well as the president of the La Mesa police union, the only person who spoke in favor of it — the council decided not to move forward with the Vasquez’s proposed resolution.
The task force that the council authorized Tuesday is expected to establish what kind of police oversight is legal in La Mesa, which is not governed by a city charter and instead is considered a general law city. That means, according to government code, “the police department... is under the control of the chief of police,” and thus potentially immune from outside oversight.
September 11, 2019
The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Alex Riggins
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