Mayor Calls ‘Workshop’ Over Police Performance

Alarmed by citizen complaints of uncontrolled drug trafficking, Mayor Maureen O’Connor has scheduled a special April 13 meeting of the San Diego City Council on police handling of the city’s drug trade and other law enforcement issues, the mayor’s spokesman said Tuesday.

The “workshop” is designed to reacquaint council members with the scope of the city’s drug problem in the weeks before they begin deliberating on the fiscal 1989 budget, spokesman Paul Downey said. But the meeting will also touch on gang activity, police-community relations, and Police Department policies on the use of deadly force and high-speed chases, he said.

Though the police force has captured headlines in recent weeks with two controversial shootings, Downey emphasized that the meeting “is not a fry-(Police Chief Bill)-Kolender-and-the-Police Department session.” Rather, it is intended to provide information to the mayor and the council, he said, adding that no public testimony will be taken at the session.

Endorsed by Kolender

“Basically, (O’Connor) wants to find out where are we at, what is going on out there,” Downey said. “. . . Where are we? What is the Police Department doing? We’re getting complaints in the mayor’s office that the police are not there in the heavy drug sale areas.”

Kolender endorsed the idea of a special session.

“I have no problem with the City Council getting involved in these kinds of issues,” he said. “I think it’s excellent that we have the opportunity to inform them about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”

The council has only to look at Kolender’s Feb. 3 report to its Public Services and Safety committee for a recent update on the city’s drug problem. Felony drug arrests have increased 97% since 1980 as San Diego County became a major port of entry for illegal drugs, as well as a prime production site, Kolender reported. In 1987, the department’s four narcotics units made 3,296 felony drug arrests and 3,217 misdemeanor drug arrests, and closed 129 methamphetamine laboratories, he said.

The No. 1 Issue

The department has 41 officers in a drug detail that walks areas of high drug sales, 22 officers on the county’s narcotics task force, and 22 officers on an undercover narcotics street team, Kolender said.

But O’Connor, in touring the city’s neighborhoods to collect signatures for her nominating petitions, found that “the No. 1 issue in the eyes of most citizens is drug abuse and the crime it breeds,” she told City Manager John Lockwood in a March 14 memo urging him to prepare for the workshop on crime and drugs.

“During my neighborhood visits, I have seen young children selling drugs on street corners. This is an outrage that must be stopped,” the memo said. “I have heard the anguished cries of mothers trying to protect their sons and daughters from the ravages that drugs can cause to a young person’s mind and body.”

Downey said the meeting’s agenda was expanded as other police issues surfaced in recent weeks, including the controversial March 12 shooting death of 56-year-old Tommie DuBose during a search of his Southeast San Diego home for drugs. Kolender last week asked the county grand jury to investigate DuBose’s death.

On March 6, an undercover police officer shot and killed 29-year-old Johnnie O. Douglas, a suspected drug dealer, during a foot chase in a narrow alley. Police have said the shooting was an accident that occurred when Douglas suddenly lurched backward as he was being subdued, causing an officer’s drawn .38-caliber revolver to fire one round.