Poll of Police Cites Need for Training on Minorities

Three out of every four blacks on the San Diego police force believe that officers subject minorities to “unfair treatment” and are “not adequately prepared” to work in the city’s minority communities, according to a recent survey of 1,014 sworn police personnel.

About 63% of white and Latino officers said they felt that officers should receive special training to work in minority communities, compared to 77% of black officers.

The survey was commissioned by the Citizens Advisory Board on Police Community Relations, a panel appointed by the City Council to review police procedures. The poll, which was conducted for the group in August by the San Diego Assn. of Governments, was obtained by The Times on Thursday. The city paid for the poll.

Of the 67 black officers who completed the questionnaire, 26% said racial slurs are heard often at the Police Department. Such comments are most likely to be heard in the Western Division and investigations unit at police headquarters downtown and least likely to be repeated in the Southeastern Division, the poll found.

However, 87% of all officers surveyed and 73% of black officers said they felt that police supervisors do not tolerate acts of prejudice or discrimination.

The survey found “some attitudes in our Police Department that need to be worked on as regards to the minority community and teen-agers,” said George Penn, assistant to the city manager and liaison to the panel. “That is nothing new. The Police Department knows that.”

Penn said the advisory board used preliminary results from the survey late last year to recommend an overhaul of police human relations training.

Daniel Weber, president of the San Diego NAACP chapter, said the survey results contradict statements by Police Chief Bill Kolender that officers and residents in minority neighborhoods are getting along fine.

“It is unreasonable in the true sense for the chief of police to allege that there is no real problem,” Weber said. “The evidence is certainly to the contrary. There is a very, very serious problem and he needs to address that.”

Kolender did not return phone calls to his office Thursday.

The survey reported that an overwhelming majority of white officers do not believe there are significant problems between police and minority residents. Eighty percent of white officers said that police are “sensitive to cultural differences” while only 45% of black officers believed so.

In addition, nearly 80% of white and Latino officers indicated that police administrators are more concerned about police-community relations than they should be.

The citizens advisory board was formed in 1985 to review police policies and defuse tension between police and San Diego residents after the Sagon Penn police shootings. The City of San Diego paid $7,400 for the poll, which surveyed 80% of police personnel under the rank of captain.

Murray Galinson, president of San Diego National Bank and chairman of the advisory board, said he is concerned about the perception among officers that the department has a problem in minority communities.

“If the officers are perceiving that people in the minority community aren’t being treated like the white Anglo-Saxon, that may be almost as important as whether it is factual or not,” Galinson said. The advisory board is considering recommending a similar study of San Diego residents.

Sandag issued seven recommendations for improving police-community relations:

- Placing more-experienced officers in communities with significant minority populations. Sandag found that those who perceive that some community groups hold negative views toward the police are likely to be younger officers who work in minority neighborhoods.

- Training officers who are transferred to new areas so they can learn about values, customs and behaviors of various ethnic groups. “Training seems to entail how to keep public relations up, not how to deal with specific minority problems,” remarked one officer.

- Explaining in detail to officers how citizens go about filing complaints against police. Many of the officers expressed displeasure with the way the Police Department handles such complaints. “Citizens can get even through the use of internal affairs,” one officer said.

- Exploring new ways to increase positive media coverage of the Police Department. Most news stories “concern the cops catching the robber and often do not provide a realistic picture of police work,” the survey said.

- Reevaluating the concept of community-oriented policing, a decade-old program that urges patrol officers to become familiar with the people and happenings on their beat. Although the police administration supports this concept, Sandag said, the survey results “suggest that it may not be taking place.”

Police administrators were sharply criticized in other areas of the survey. For example, 77% of all officers said that police officials do not recognize the importance of reducing stress in police officers.

“They don’t give a damn,” said one officer.

Nearly half of the officers said that they were not treated the same when being disciplined by supervisors. Thirteen percent noted that favoritism accounted for differences in the way administrators mete out discipline.

The study was conducted before Kolender and Assistant Chief Bob Burgreen were issued written reprimands for fixing tickets and using police personnel and equipment for personal business.

One officer said: “Some loudmouth, badge-heavy cops still get noticed in a positive way by administration, such as promotability or being ‘a good cop.’ Some quiet cops who don’t generate complaints don’t get noticed.”

One-third of the officers said the Police Department “goes overboard” by placing too much emphasis on police-community relations, according to the survey.

To better educate the public about police work, some officers suggested that the department encourage more citizens to accompany officers on ride-alongs.

“Being spit at and cussed at turns on new lights with some people,” said one officer.

Most officers said that their current assignments were made by choice. About a quarter expressed a desire to transfer to another division. Most of these officers preferred to transfer out of the Southeastern station.

More than 80% of the respondents said they felt that the business community would rate the Police Department as doing a good or very good job. Two-thirds of the officers said that community leaders and most residents would give them the same rating. But only one-fourth stated that minorities or juveniles would approve of police performance.