SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) -- As cities across the nation face the challenge of addressing police misconduct, the city of San Jose continues to attempt to improve the relationship between its police department and residents.
The city's Independent Police Auditor Office, which is aimed to strengthen the relationship between the San Jose Police Department and the community it serves, has changed significantly over the last year.
“Late May, early June when we had the civil unrest in downtown and there was a lot of police conduct that caused a lot of people's concerns, so we were inundated with complaints,” said Shivaun Nurre, Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose.
“We had maybe 1,200 complaints.”
Last July, the IPA was directed to conduct a special report on the quantity and type of complaints received by the IPA during the period of civil unrest and the police's response from May 29 up until June 30.
The report revealed that over 1,000 people contacted the IPA’s office regarding interactions between police and demonstrators.
“A lot of them were duplicates, so I'm not saying we have 1,200 complaints to investigate but we do have quite a few,” said Nurre.
“That also kind of raised our profile in the community and so we’ve been having more requests for more interviews, for more outreach, and at the same time we’ve been asked by the City Council to do a whole host of things.”
In November, the IPA’s powers were expanded after more than 77% of voters passed Measure G -- aimed to create more transparency and accountability from police as part of Mayor Sam Liccardo’s 9-Point Police Reform Plan.
Under the measure, the IPA would be allowed to review certain investigations that were initiated by the police department against its own officers.
Earlier this month Nurre was reappoined to serve another four-year term as IPA.
“The city council has shown confidence that I can move forward and have my own four-year term, so i'm very happy that they are confident in me,” said Nurre.
“ It's just such an interesting time to be in this line of work because you have so many things that are moving forward all at the same time,” Nurre added.
“We have a lot of police reform work but in addition to that a lot of city interest in equity and how do you meld that also when moving forward with reforms.”
Currently, the IPA is working on various initiatives aimed to improve its police department.
These initiatives include hiring an outside consultant to come in and assess the police response to the civil unrest, use of force practices, and if SJPD is in compliance with the Task Force on 21st Century Policing best practices.
“I know that SJPD has done some work on getting some of these over the goal line but we want to look at all of them,” said Nurre.
“Let's make sure that SJPD is at the very forefront of 21st Century policing.”
A recent survey put out by the IPA revealed San Jose residents lack trust in its police department.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3iXYsF3
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