Suit Charges Police Abuse of Black Youth

As San Diego city officials consider the establishment of a citizen review agency to investigate charges of police misconduct, a black leader has filed a federal lawsuit charging that the lack of adequate investigation has emboldened officers to abuse the rights of blacks.

The suit, filed earlier this month by local NAACP President Daniel Weber, alleges that the city’s system for investigating citizen complaints of police improprieties is so ineffective “that it has become the de facto policy and custom of the city to tolerate . . . unlawful conduct by police officers.”

Weber, an attorney, filed the suit March 13 on behalf of Robert E. Hayes, a black Southeast San Diego teen-ager who says he was attacked by a police dog and then falsely accused of delinquency by the dog’s handler to cover up the attack. Though the NAACP is not a party to the suit, Weber said the case had its origins when Hayes and his family complained to the civil rights group about the incident.

Police officials said Wednesday that they were unaware of the incident and that their records show no indication that Hayes had complained to the Police Department about an attack.

“It sounds like Mr. Weber is using the filing of a lawsuit as a political platform to thrust his personal views on this matter on the public,” Assistant Police Chief Bob Burgreen said.

Weber said a formal claim in the case had been filed with the city and rejected before the suit was filed.

Minority leaders, including Weber, have called for establishment in San Diego of a citizen review board, like those that exist in many other large cities, to conduct independent investigations of alleged instancesof police brutality, racism and other forms of misconduct.

Police Chief Bill Kolender adamantly opposes creation of such a board, saying it would subject officers to “kangaroo court” justice.

Last week, he proposed instead that the county grand jury periodically review investigations conducted by the Police Department’s internal-affairs division to assure that the department was not white-washing misconduct cases. City Manager John Lockwood said he liked the proposal, but City Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros and others studying the civilian review issue urged that he not rush to implement the plan.

The lawsuit says that Hayes was walking across the playground at Freese Elementary School in Paradise Valley on May 11 when he saw a man running toward him with a dog. Frightened, Hayes began to run away, and the man ordered the dog to attack him, the suit claims.

After the dog had bitten the youth, the man identified himself as a police officer and said the dog would not hurt Hayes if he stopped running, the suit continues. But even after Hayes stopped, the officer allowed the dog to bite him several more times, according to the suit.

Subsequently, a woman who had called police to say she had been attacked at the schoolyard told the officer that Hayes was not her assailant, the suit says. Nonetheless, it alleges, the officer arrested Hayes and later filed delinquency complaints against him in Juvenile Court. According to Weber, Hayes was cleared of the charges.

The suit identifies the officer only as “Officer McDaniel.” Burgreen said there was no officer in the department by that name, although there is a K-9 officer assigned to the Southeast Division with a similar name.

The case is one of a number of civil rights actions filed against the Police Department in the last several years pursuant to complaints lodged with the NAACP. But it is the first to raise the issue of citizen review.

“One would hope that these cases that are unfortunately being brought to the public’s attention would cause the City Council, the mayor and the city manager, as well as the chief, to take immediate action in order to prevent this kind of outrageous conduct from occuring,” Weber said.

But Burgreen, noting the absence of any record of a complaint about the incident to police, expressed skepticism about the case.

“It’s difficult for us to be responsive if people never talk to us and never tell us they’re having a problem with us,” he said.

The suit, which seeks $1 million in damages, says police investigations of citizen complaints routinely justify officers’ actions, give more credence to the testimony of officers than that of civilians and leave out important facts. It complains that supervisors sometimes exonerate officers publicly before an investigation has been conducted and fail to adequately review investigations for accuracy.