Top Concern: Safety of Cops : 45-Officer Task Force to Review S.D. Police

Prompted by the March 31 slaying of patrolman Thomas E. Riggs, the San Diego Police Department announced Friday that a 45-officer task force will critique the department’s philosophies, safety procedures and hiring criteria.

Seven separate areas will be formally assessed by the newly formed Officer Protection Task Force, which will hold its first meeting April 22 and spend three to four months reviewing safety-related topics.

The Police Department’s safety equipment, training programs, safety inspection methods and the methods by which incidents such as Riggs’ death are analyzed also will be assessed.

Cmdr. Mike Rice, who will serve as project manager, said Friday that the task force will consist entirely of San Diego officers selected from throughout the city. Each officer will be assigned to one of seven committees, each of which will be headed by a police captain.

Deputy Chief Norm Stamper is to head the task force.

“Each committee will have the responsibility of telling us what problems we have and will make recommendations,” Rice said. “They can draw on experts inside the department as well as out.”

If pressing deficiencies are discovered, the department intends to remedy them immediately, Rice said. “We hope to find out in some cases that we are doing some things right,” he noted. “We’re not concerned about the quality of law enforcement in the city; we think we’re doing a good job. What we are concerned about is the safety of our officers.”

The San Diego Police Officers Assn. in January recommended to the City Council’s Public Services and Safety Committee that officer safety be studied. However, it was not until last month’s shooting of Riggs--and subsequent revelations that San Diego’s police mortality rate is among the nation’s highest--that the Police Department opted to initiate a wide-scale review of safety procedures.

Riggs was the 10th San Diego police officer killed since 1977. He was shot dead after he stopped in Encanto to assist another patrolman, Donovan J. Jacobs, who had been tailing a pickup truck and ordered it to halt. Jacobs scuffled with the truck’s driver, who wrested Jacobs’ service revolver from him. Jacobs was wounded along with Sara Pina-Ruiz, a civilian riding along in Riggs’ patrol car who police have said was interested in becoming an officer.

Jacobs, who was shot in the neck, remained hospitalized Friday but may be released next week, according to a spokeswoman at Mercy Hospital. Pina-Ruiz is recovering from superficial gunshot wounds at home and has refused to publicly discuss the shootings.

A Southeast San Diego man, Sagon Penn, 23, has been charged with murder and attempted murder in the incident. He remains in the County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Rice said that the task force will specifically examine the Police Department’s overall philosophy of “Community Oriented Policing,” a strategy adopted in 1975 that encourages frequent contact between civilians and beat officers on patrol.