Ballesteros Raps Kolender’s Plan for Jury Review

San Diego City Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros criticized Police Chief Bill Kolender and City Manager John Lockwood Friday for advocating the use of county grand jurors to audit internal police investigations without allowing the consideration of more aggressive forms of civilian review.

“Ramming something down anybody’s throat is not going to improve trust in the Police Department,” Ballesteros said. “(They’re trying) to calm everybody down and quiet everybody. I think it is the wrong approach. You end up really exacerbating the problem. People can see right through it and, therefore, instead of making the matter better, it becomes worse.”

San Diego NAACP President Daniel Weber added, “We believe that it is just an attempt by the chief of police and his supporters to blunt or prevent having an independent commission review the conduct of the Police Department.”

Kolender called the criticism “unreasonable and very unfair.”

“Nobody is ramming anything,” Kolender said. “We understand that the police community relations board is looking at the situation. This is our proposal that we hope will give them some answers to the problems they are talking about.”

Kolender has long opposed the concept of civilian review boards. Asked Friday if his plan effectively squelched any chance of a police civilian review panel in San Diego, Kolender said: “I hope so.”

Ballesteros and Weber were among several community leaders who expressed surprise at the timing of Thursday’s announcement that police wanted the county grand jury to periodically scrutinize the department’s response to citizen charges of police misconduct.

Lockwood, who quickly embraced Kolender’s plan Thursday as fair and imaginative, said last month that he hoped to establish a panel allowing citizen input on police discipline within 60 days. By setting a two-week deadline on Thursday to decide on a final plan, Lockwood is denying a citizen’s advisory group the opportunity to produce any meaningful alternatives, Ballesteros said.

“John keeps saying to me, ‘In 60 days I’ve got to have this report,’ ” Ballesteros said. “I don’t (know) why he says this magical figure of 60 days. What’s the rush? (The citizens task force) wants a little bit more time.”

Lockwood burst into laughter when told of Ballesteros’ remarks.

“Here you have persons in the community that are suggesting that what is being done right now can be improved upon,” Lockwood said. “We’re looking at it saying, ‘Yeah, we think we can improve on it.’ I imposed a 60-day deadline on myself because you can study things to death.

“The complaint is we’re moving too fast when for years and years the complaint has been we’re moving too slow.”

Lockwood added, “It seems to me two months is a reasonable amount of time to get input. Let’s get on with it. If we’re going to change it, change it. If it doesn’t work out, you can change it again.”

Lockwood is rushing the process because he is getting pressure to do something from City Council members, including Ballesteros, suggested Murray Galinson, a banker who is president of the Citizens Advisory Task Force on Police Community Relations.

“I am not excited about the time bind that we’re under,” Galinson said. “On the other hand, without that maybe we wouldn’t have a proposal to work from. You’ve got to start from somewhere.

“We have a concrete proposal. Nobody’s bought into it at this point. It’s a giant leap forward by the Police Department. Here they’re saying we’re willing to accept some kind of citizen involvement.”

The Police Department’s proposal to use the county grand jury as a review board is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. The plan falls short of the full-fledged civilian review board that has been demanded by some community groups in the wake of a series of alleged police brutality cases against minorities.

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

Police officials say they are recommending the plan in an attempt to counter the public’s perception that the department cannot fairly investigate its own officers.

Despite the city manager’s endorsement, the plan is facing strong opposition from an unlikely alliance--rank-and-file officers and minority leaders.

San Diego Police Officers Assn. Treasurer Vince Krolikowski insisted Friday that the Police Department’s internal investigative procedures are satisfactory, and that changing public perceptions--not changing the system--is what is needed.

“It seems like everybody right now is putting all their time and effort into working on the system,” Krolikowski said. “If we put that much time into working on the perception, I think that could be handled.”

Krolikowski said Kolender’s proposal would violate the due process rights of police officers by selecting disciplinary cases at random for grand jury investigation. Officers could never be certain they were cleared of wrongdoing, because the grand jury could reopen their case.

“Nobody minds being reviewed. Nobody minds being investigated,” he said. “But twice? And that’s because a number comes up? And it’s a different group? You’re talking about some real constitutional issues here.”

Grand jury members, he added, are appointed each year and “could be affected by politics or community pressure.”

Minority leaders point out that the grand jury is made up mostly of white, conservative, middle class citizens who do not represent the views of blacks, Latinos and Asians.

“Certainly the grand jury has had the authority to conduct those investigations for some time,” Weber said. “It has never done anything about it. And now there is an effort to have the jury look into allegations six months or more after the occurrence of the event.

“There is no reason for us to assume that there is going to be a thorough, independent investigation by the grand jury.”

Ballesteros said that in recent weeks she has been quietly working behind the scenes with Lockwood, Kolender and Galinson to come up with a plan that is acceptable to the police and the community.

“Well, now they come up with this,” Ballesteros said. “ . . . there is no independence, no unbiased view, no neutral look at this whole situation.”

The councilwoman said she does not feel that one trip to Phoenix--where Galinson, Krolikowski, a police official and another city official examined that city’s police review system--and one report by police administrators is enough research on which to base a recommendation.

“I really feel the city deserves better than a cursory look at one city and a memo on an issue that is so important to all of us,” Ballesteros said.

Andrea Skorepa, a member of the task force subcommittee on police misconduct procedures that is studying civilian review boards, made similar comments.

“This is one of the most important things we have had to face and I would hate because of haste not to be able to give it the due consideration it merits,” Skorepa said.

But Phil Hart, an independent management consultant who heads the misconduct subcommittee, said he does not feel pressured by the Police Department or the city manager.

“I have no problem coming up with a recommendation for city management in the next two to four weeks,” Hart said. “I think that it’s gotten to the point where a lot of people are interested to see what recommendations we have to offer.”

Galinson, the committee chairman, said the task force will be looking to suggest ways to independently check police investigations immediately afterward, not six months later as suggested by police.

But Galinson said he is encouraged by Asst. Police Chief Bob Burgreen’s willingness to allow the citizens task force to continue meeting beyond its scheduled expiration date later this year so it can review the effectiveness of the proposed grand jury system.

Said Burgreen: “This is our best effort at offering up a public inspection by a legally constituted body whose job it is to be a watchdog of public agencies.”

Times staff writer Jim Schachter contributed to this story.