San Jose PD Sharpens Focus in Troubled Times

April 26, 2013
The department announced a renewed mission statement with a goal of innovating city policing.

SAN JOSE -- The San Jose Police Department lacks a permanent chief. It's fielding an overstretched force. Morale continues to roil amid a bitter fight over reduced pension benefits.

But the police brass sought to give the department stability and direction Thursday by announcing a renewed mission statement with a goal of innovating city policing in an environment of "challenges and uncertainty."

The new "Department Direction" was launched in part to allay community and rank-and-file concerns that police have been operating in a holding pattern until the city finds a new top cop, a process that stalled and has since been reset after a fruitless initial search.

"We've been kind of floating for a while. This gives us a specific direction that is reasonable and attainable. It's invigorated a lot of people," acting police Chief Larry Esquivel said. "It lets the public know, this is what we're doing. They know we're not just sitting idle."

Thus the acronym RCITI -- pronounced "Our City" -- was born, encompassing what the department considers its "core priorities":

--Respect, empathy and professionalism.

--Crime reduction.

--Investing in our employees.

--Transparency and accountability.

--Innovation for the future.

"Through RCITI, the department seeks to simplify its mission in light of the many fiscal, staffing and crime challenges it faces," a police news release

states.

Those fiscal and staffing challenges stem largely from austerity measures and proposed benefit cuts that resulted in an exodus of officers seeking better pay with other agencies. Crimes rates have spiked in the face of shrinking city patrols. Last fall, a frustrated Chief Chris Moore unexpectedly announced his January retirement, replaced by Esquivel until a permanent replacement can be hired.

LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge who now serves as the city's civilian police auditor, said Esquivel's gesture toward more transparency was important for recovering lost traction with the public.

"I applaud the fact (the chief) is making what SJPD is doing a very public matter," Cordell said. "Before, SJPD didn't promote itself with community, and people didn't know sometimes what was going on. It couldn't be more timely. The last thing this department needed to do is just remain silent."

The RCITI plan seeks to bolster areas including community policing and trust, training and promotion opportunities for officers, and better utilizing the Internet and social media to maintain a lifeline with residents. That entails a formalized partnership with NextDoor, a city-based agency whose mission is to support victims of domestic violence, and a new mobile app called CityConnect that give residents access to police resources with their mobile? devices.

Since the initiative was rolled out in February, police spokesman Sgt. Jason Dwyer said, it has given a needed jolt to the force, with its emphasis on customer service and gang suppression.

"This has always been a professional department. But there's cynicism, and (officers) can become susceptible to become hardened and cold to the job. Practicing ethics is a perishable skill," he said. "We need to get back to the basics."

That sentiment is especially resonant after the release this week of an annual police auditor's report. Within the lauded 7 percent drop in complaints filed against police from 2011 to 2012, there was also a finding that officers with seven or more years of experience accounted for 75 percent of the complaints.

A focus on gangs, the department said, has yielded promising results, namely decreases in the frequency of gang-related violence and the seizure of dozens of illegal guns. In the first quarter of the year, gang-related violence calls dropped from 90 in 2012 to 65 in 2013, a 28 percent decrease.

Police say curbing gang incidents will have a domino effect on other quality-of-life crimes in the city, which include robbery, burglary, vandalism and auto theft. Patrol officers are now receiving ongoing training in gang recognition to supplement officers tasked solely with gang suppression.

While the tenets of the new mission statement seem like standard, even expected, goals, the city's police auditor said that publicly reasserting them sets expectations so residents can gauge the department's performance.

"The message from the community," Cordell said, "is now: 'Let's see you do this.' "

Copyright 2013 - San Jose Mercury News

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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