San Jose Forum Airs Community Calls for Police Transparency

ACLU Organizes First in Statewide Series
For Immediate Release: September 17, 2007

SAN JOSE -- The ACLU of Northern California, along with over 30 civil rights and community groups, will hold a forum this evening in San Jose to address police secrecy.  The forum comes at a time of mounting community concern regarding police use of Tasers and allegations of racial profiling.  The forum, “Police Transparency: Public Safety, Public Trust,” marks the first in a statewide series sponsored by the ACLU to address police transparency issues across California and focus attention on the police accountability measure pending in the California Assembly, Senate Bill 1019.

The forum is being held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San Jose at 6:30 p.m.

“The public has a right to know about police activities in our communities,” said Mark Schlosberg, Police Practices Policy Director of the ACLU-NC.  “Transparency in police records improves public safety because it bolsters public confidence and allows us to improve policing techniques – something simple assurances by police officials will not do.”

Among the community members that will speak at the forum are Noreen Salinas, the daughter of Steve Salinas, a Native American man, who recently died following the SJPD use of Tasers.  Three months after her father’s death, Salinas is still struggling with the SJPD to obtain official documents to understand why force was used on her father, who was unarmed, and emerging from a shower.

“No one should have to go through what I am going through.  The police need to provide a full accounting of how my father died,” Salinas said.  “I hope for a city where the truth is not privileged information and police are accountable to the public they serve.”

SJPD officers create use-of-force reports documenting when Tasers are used, but these reports are kept secret.  Since 2004, there have been 5 fatalities in San Jose following SJPD Taser use, prompting community concern. The ACLU-NC has been requesting that the police release these use-of-force reports which would enable the public to understand whether the SJPD is using force consistent with its internal policies, particularly when Tasers are involved.  The SJPD has refused to release the reports.

Rick Callender, President of the NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley, will also speak at the community forum, underlining the many complaints he has received of racial profiling.  Last month the NAACP called for a federal probe of the San Jose Police Department after a SJPD statistical report showed that people of color are being arrested greatly out of proportion to their population in the city.  The statistical report also showed that the Department is more likely to use force when a person of color is being arrested.

San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis has admitted that “there are police officers who have issues” and that disciplinary measures have been taken, but will not disclose details to the public, citing state law. 

Legislation pending in the California Assembly would give SJPD Chief Davis and other police agencies the authority to release such information. 

“The vast majority of police officers honor the public’s trust,” Schlosberg said, “but when that trust is broken, the public has a right to know what happened.” SB 1019, currently in the California Assembly, directly overturns a 2006 California Supreme Court decision that in effect, bars the public from knowing how police handle claims of misconduct.  The bill, which passed the Senate over opposition from police unions, would restore limited public access to misconduct hearings and records.

The ACLU and local community groups plan to hold the next forum in the statewide series on police transparency next month in Santa Rosa, where recent community complaints of police misconduct have led to calls for increased transparency.

Today’s forum is co-sponsored by El Observador; NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley; La Raza Roundtable; Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI); Asian Law Alliance; Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN); League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara; BAYMEC; Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center; McManis Faulkner & Morgan; Bay Area Iranian-American Voter Association; Council on American Islamic Relations – San Francisco Bay Area; Amnesty International; Mental Health Advocacy Project, Program of Law Foundation of Silicon Valley; Public Interest Law Firm, Program of Law Foundation of Silicon Valley; Silicon Valley De-Bug; San Jose Peace Center; South Bay Mobilization; and additional member organizations of the Asian Pacific Islander Justice Coalition of the Silicon Valley.

Learn more about SB 1019  and the ACLU campaign to restore the public’s right to know about police misconduct.