Police Chief Kolender Under Fire in San Diego

As he begins his 12th year as this city’s police chief, Bill Kolender finds himself for the first time the target of sustained, widespread criticism from San Diego’s black and Latino communities.

Frustrated by what they see as the Police Department’s unwillingness to respond to persistent reports of police aggression and sparked by the emotional trial of a young black man accused of killing a white officer, a number of minority organizations and individuals have demanded Kolender’s resignation.

“I have no confidence in Kolender. Maybe he doesn’t feel it, but there is a lot of resentment,” said Ernie McCray, a black elementary school principal in a comment typical of the growing mistrust of the chief.

While strained relations between minorities and police are commonplace in many U.S. cities, they are new in San Diego, where racial hostilities have been minimal. Nine percent of San Diego’s 1 million residents are black, and 15% Latino.

The recent criticism also represents a sharp departure in community attitude toward Kolender, a veteran of three decades in the department who has worked nearly all that time building support among San Diego’s political, business and civic leaders. In recent years, Kolender arguably has been the city’s most popular public figure.

Kolender, 51, has served longer than any other American big-city chief and enjoys a national reputation as an honest, open-minded police administrator. His 1,400-member department has been routinely praised as one of the most efficient and responsive police organizations in the country.

Kolender, who earns $76,800 annually, continues to receive strong backing from City Manager Sylvester Murray, who is black, and the City Council, and virtually no one here believes that he is in serious danger of losing his job.

“I think you have to acknowledge that Chief Kolender still has a tremendous amount of respect in San Diego as a good, innovative police chief, even though we are going through this period right now,” said Councilman Ed Struiksma, a former San Diego police officer.

Struiksma and other council members say Kolender has been forced into the delicate position of having to choose between supporting his officers in the wake of the a number of police shootings and acknowledging some legitimate complaints by minority leaders.

This conflict was illustrated by Kolender’s reluctance to acknowledge any police problems in the city’s minority neighborhoods. He did not concede any problem until after an Aug. 7 community meeting where 200 angry residents, most of them black, turned out to condemn the Police Department.

About three dozen people told a special citizens advisory panel that police sometimes treat residents as criminals, even when they are reporting crimes. One speaker declared that the community and police were “at war,” while another said police relations were “about on a par with Johannesburg.”

Some Want Him Fired

Several offered a simple solution: Kolender should be fired.

Even though he says he recognizes police tensions with minorities, Kolender at times tends to minimize the magnitude of the problem.

“I think those fires are out,” Kolender said in a recent interview. “I think it’s just dimmed. I think as we continue to communicate, as long as I’m responsive to the community and support meaningful change, that will create a better relationship. I don’t see any problem.

“Look, nobody pleases everybody. I’ve been chief 11 years. I do my best to be progressive and to motivate and to hold this department accountable. . . . Yes, I’ve taken some stands, and when you do that, whatever your occupation, eventually there are people who don’t like your views.”

Kolender takes pride in the performance of his department, which has not suffered a major scandal under him. He became the department’s first Jewish officer when he joined in 1956 and rose through the ranks, primarily as a community relations officer. In that role, he was the Police Department’s point man for minorities during the 1960s and served as the police liaison with City Hall.

Fallout From Penn Trial

The galvanizing event for much of the criticism of Kolender was the trial of Sagon Penn, a 24-year-old black man who was acquitted in June of the murder of Officer Thomas Riggs and the attempted murder of Officer Donovan Jacobs.

According to courtroom testimony, Jacobs detained Penn after mistaking him for a gang member, beat him repeatedly with a night stick and taunted him with racial slurs. Several defense witnesses said Jacobs warned Penn: “You think you’re bad, nigger. . . . I’m going to beat your black ass.”

The defense argued that Penn acted in self-defense when he pulled Jacobs’ gun and shot the officers. Jacobs denied using racial epithets, and the prosecutor sought to discredit black witnesses who testified for the defense by suggesting that they were “hostile” to police and never tried to assist the fallen officers.

Kolender expressed shock at the innocent verdicts and said he hoped that Penn would be retried on several lesser charges in which the jurors failed to reach verdicts. (A new trial on several unresolved charges, including the attempted murder of a civilian ride-along, is pending a review of a defense appeal by the California Supreme Court.)

‘Very Disappointed’

“I’m very disappointed,” Kolender said at the time. “This is going to leave my officers angry and sad.”

In July, Kolender told The Times: “We really don’t feel the officers were wrong. We have problems with some of the evidence presented. . . . The black friends I’ve had for many years, they understand it is an isolated incident.”

McCray said nothing in his lifetime has affected him as much emotionally as the Penn case.

“That’s from being a black male and having been harassed on occasion by police (for) being a black male,” said McCray, a San Diego resident for 24 years. “I thought it was really somewhat unprecedented that Sagon Penn was set free. It let me know justice can prevail. . . .

“Now here is the chief of police and he had problems with that . . . I think he disregarded what a lot of the case dealt with (and) the statements from black witnesses. What I heard through all his anger and sadness was that he didn’t believe those people.”

More Than a Tragedy

To many blacks like McCray, the Penn case represents more than a tragedy for the families of the victims. They believe that what happened to Penn is indicative of what takes place on a regular basis when police officers confront blacks in predominantly minority southeast San Diego.

“People in this community have had problems for a long time and they in fact see the Sagon Penn incident as being part of the problem,” said Kathy Rollins, executive director of the Black Federation of San Diego. “They do not see it as an isolated incident.”

The black community is by no means united in its opposition to Kolender.

“I think that Bill Kolender . . . has done an excellent job in sensitizing his people and his department in trying to get them to relate to every segment of this community,” said the Rev. George Walker Smith, a black leader for three decades. “The Penn case is passe as far as I’m concerned. It’s not an indictment on the Police Department. . . . The black community and the white community want to put that behind us.”

‘We Do Have a Problem’

But the Rev. Robert Ard, a black minister and longtime Kolender supporter who is the Republican candidate in the 79th Assembly District, said during a recent interview that Kolender is underestimating the significance of the Penn trial.

“After this incident, we’re still hearing that (police abuse) is isolated,” Ard said. “I have been trying for a long period of time to get our chief to understand that yes, we do have a problem. Until such time we admit we have a problem, these things are going to continue.”

City officials say the Penn case placed Kolender in an untenable position because Riggs was the ninth San Diego officer slain in the line of duty in the last decade, giving the city the nation’s highest per-capita police mortality rate.

“I suspect that Bill is between a rock and a hard spot, in that if he were to make a statement along the lines that (black leaders) would like to hear, he could be substantially undercutting the morale of his own department,” Struiksma said. “I don’t suspect he wants to do that. But I’ve never perceived him as an individual who runs away from the truth.”

Latino Problem

Kolender recently drew criticism from another minority community when he sent a memo to his officers reminding them to record for statistical purposes any suspects who may be undocumented aliens. The July 28 memo said proof or confirmation is not required for officers to check a box marked “Undocumented Person” on arrest reports.

The memo opened the door for Latinos to denounce Kolender, who had already alienated many Latinos by blaming undocumented residents for recent increases in San Diego’s crime rate.

The Committee on Chicano Rights, an independent group of outspoken Latinos, asked Murray and Mayor Maureen O’Connor to dismiss Kolender over the memo.

Kolender quickly re-evaluated the policy and halted the police practice of identifying undocumented aliens and holding them for the Border Patrol. Kolender said he acted because he was “concerned about the ‘appearance’ of treating people differently who are of Hispanic descent.”

‘We Are Still Friends’

Kolender contends he is making progress toward improving police-community relations in San Diego’s minority communities.

“We are still friends,” he said. “Yes, we had a difference of opinion when it comes to (the Penn) case. I’m hopeful that it doesn’t have a negative effect on the department as a whole or me personally, and I’m going to work to maintain that positive relationship with the black community. I think it’s very important. . . .

“Yes, I’ve got some fences to mend. I’m going to do it.”

Kolender said he wants to hire more black officers. Also, commanders have been instructed to assign the best officers to southeast San Diego and transfer out those with “poor attitudes.” So far this year, five officers in southeast San Diego have been reassigned because they were “burned out,” Capt. Dave Johnson said.

Plans to Stay On

Kolender said the added stress in the last year has not caused him to look for another job. He has twice turned down opportunities to run for mayor and rejected an offer in 1981 to head the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Even though he became eligible to retire last year, Kolender does not plan on leaving unless “something overwhelming takes place or comes along,” he said.

“I like the relationship I feel with the community as a whole. People throughout the city are very nice to me. I feel very comfortable. There’s a lot of positive things that outweigh some of the negative things we’re talking about.”