Grand Jury Review of Police Complaints Urged by Kolender

Police Chief Bill Kolender, acknowledging public skepticism about the fairness of internal Police Department investigations, proposed Thursday that the county grand jury periodically scrutinize the department’s response to citizen charges of police misconduct.

City Manager John Lockwood, who promised last month to establish a panel allowing citizen input in police discipline, quickly embraced the plan, declaring it fair and imaginative. But the chairman of a City Council-appointed citizen advisory committee urged Lockwood to hold off implementing the proposal until the panel has fully reviewed it.

The plan falls short of the full-fledged citizen review board, empowered to independently investigate complaints, that has been demanded by some community groups in the wake of a series of alleged instances of police brutality and racial misconduct.

Kolender opposes such boards, which exist in other cities, calling them “kangaroo courts.” But in a memo presented Thursday to Lockwood and the Citizens’ Advisory Board on Police-Community Relations, he said grand jury involvement “would provide a ‘citizen review’ ” of the Police Department by “citizens representative of the community.”

“We’re offering for a body that’s legally entitled (to do so) to come in and take a look at our process,” said Cmdr. Keith Enerson, a department spokesman. “We believe we do a fair and impartial investigation. And hopefully this will show that.”

Under Kolender’s proposal, grand jurors would review a random sample of misconduct investigations once or twice a year and issue public reports on the “quality, objectivity and fairness” of police self-examination.

In addition, the department’s internal affairs division would assume responsibility for investigating a variety of serious complaints--including allegations of extreme discourtesy or the use of racial slurs--that now are reviewed within an officer’s command.

“A perception exists in the community and in the department that command investigations lack objectivity and favor the officer over the citizen,” Kolender said in the memo, explaining the proposed change. “To a greater or lesser degree, there is some validity to this perception.”

One of the black community leaders who has been most outspoken in calling for a citizen review board, local NAACP President Daniel Weber, quickly rejected Kolender’s proposal. Weber said an after-the-fact review of police investigations would not satisfy public demands for independent inquiry, and he questioned whether the grand jury is fully representative of the city’s ethnic makeup.

“The grand jury has had the legal authority to conduct investigations of the Police Department for a long, long time,” Weber said. “In view of the fact it hasn’t done anything, there’s no reason to assume it would do a credible job now.”

In other quarters, however, the plan received an enthusiastic welcome. Lockwood said the chief’s proposal showed “initiative and imagination.”

“You’re trying to give a comfort level to reasonable, rational people that what you do is appropriate,” said Lockwood, who expects to announce a final decision on a review process within two weeks. “I think the majority of people are going to see this as a reasonable, rational approach and a fair approach.”

Murray Galinson, a banker who is chairman of the citizens advisory board, called the plan “a giant step in the right direction.” But Galinson warned Lockwood against implementing the proposal before it can be reviewed by the board, which was established by the council in 1985 to study police policies and defuse tension between police and residents.

“I would hope Mr. Lockwood would not make a recommendation before he gets our recommendation,” said Galinson, predicting the board will have completed its study by April 15. “This is not something to be rushed into.”

Galinson said details of the plan--how the cases to be reviewed by the grand jury would be selected, how they would be presented to the jurors and how quickly cases would be made available for review, for instance--need to be spelled out. Also under discussion is extending the life span of Galinson’s board, or establishing a similar panel, to monitor the grand jury review process and make sure community interests are being satisfied, he said.

The reaction of the San Diego Police Officers Assn. to the proposal will be crucial, Galinson said. POA President Skip DiCerchio could not be reached for comment Thursday, but the POA has opposed the call for a citizen review board.

Edward B. Meyer, foreman of the 19-member county grand jury, said the review function is a natural responsibility for the grand jurors to adopt.

“It would certainly give a degree of greater credibility to any investigation of alleged complaints,” he said. “It would reduce the perception that there’s a potential whitewash on the part of the law enforcement agencies.”

But Meyer, a retired Marine Corps general, said the plan could only work if the grand jury was guaranteed considerable independence in its scrutiny.

“I see nothing wrong with the concept,” Meyer said, “as long as we implement it where the grand jury makes the decisions about what complaints it will review and will not be force-fed by any agency.”

Currently, a new grand jury is appointed each July by the judges of the San Diego County Superior Court, but the court is considering a plan to add continuity to the jury process by staggering the appointments. Meyer said the change would increase the jury’s effectiveness if it assumed police review responsibilities.

Though the grand jury in recent years has consisted largely of retirees with the time to participate in its studies of county government, Meyer rejected the criticism that the jurors might lack the expertise or sensitivity to assess police conduct.

“It doesn’t take any great qualifications,” he said. “I’d pit the members of this grand jury against anybody from an interrogatory basis.”

In the last six months, police investigations have sustained 30% of citizen complaints about officers’ conduct, according to city statistics. But none of the 24 complaints of excessive force was found to be substantive, and minority leaders have protested that officers too frequently have gone undisciplined for serious misconduct.