Police Rush Into Revamping Image : Council Says ‘Whoa,’ Wants a Look at Program First

The San Diego Police Department--at the urging of the City Council--put a temporary hold Monday on plans to revamp its “human relations” training to improve its sagging image in the black community.

Council members, led by William Jones, who represents the largely black Southeast area, said the Police Department had embarked on planned reforms before the City Council had had a chance to review a major report that called for abolishing the department’s traditional human relations training and replacing it with several “cultural awareness,” “cultural literacy” and “community orientation” programs.

“I’m concerned this hasn’t been reviewed by the City Council . . . and already you’re implementing the recommendations,” Jones said to Norm Stamper, the deputy police chief who is in charge of implementing the report’s recommendations.

Among the recommendations contained in the report, prepared for the city by consultant Vickie Romero & Associates of Phoenix, is the creation of a task force to help put the changes in place at the department’s training academy, along with continued human relations training for veteran officers.

Stamper, to the surprise of the City Council, said that the task force--composed of two members of the citizens police-community relations advisory board, minority police officers and educators--had already met twice and had scheduled another meeting for Sept. 2.

“There does exist a strain between police and the community,” Stamper said. “There is a problem.”

But Jones, while agreeing that “there is a real problem,” said he and others have questions about some of the report’s recommendations, some of which he says he supports and others he says he doesn’t.

“How many people in the community were interviewed? What are other major cities doing?” Jones asked. “It’s inappropriate for the task force to be discussing implementation of a report we haven’t even discussed yet.”

“If we don’t deal with human relations well,” said Jones, “all the rhetoric out there won’t solve it. . . . The community is waiting for us to do it.”

The relations between police and the black community have deteriorated in the wake of the Sagon Penn case. Penn was accused of killing a police officer, severely wounding another and wounding a civilian ride-along after he was stopped for an alleged traffic violation in Southeast San Diego.

At his recently concluded trial, where Penn was found innocent of most major charges, Penn’s defense charged that police provoked Penn with racial taunts and slurs.

Three weeks ago at a community-police meeting in Southeast San Diego, residents severely criticized police for a lack of sensitivity in dealing with blacks.

Among the recommendations in the 41-page report is that the traditional 16-hour human relations course taught at the academy--as well as others--be dropped.

In their place would be such courses as cultural awareness, “which focuses on cultural universals, cross-cultural similarities and differences, and the development of understanding, sensitivity and appreciation for the variety of groups which make up American society.”

The proposed cultural literary course would provide classes on individual ethnic groups and their “attitudes, beliefs and social conventions that might impact on day-to-day contacts the officer has with each group.”

In addition, the report recommends that training in human relations--including how officers relate to each other--should continue after officers leave the academy.

The issue of the report and the recommendations was delayed until Sept. 22, when the Police Department and the author of the report are scheduled to present the study’s findings.