San Diego Community Review Board To Discuss De-Escalation Tactics

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego is still reeling from the side of police, firing projectiles and tear gas on people peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minnesota police officer. The question of how police should deescalate a situation before it turns violent is becoming urgent as the nation struggles with how to address racial disparities in policing. It's the subject of two emergency meetings in San Diego this week. And we are now joined by Charmaine Mosley. Who's executive director of the city of San Diego's community review board on police practices, which oversees police misconduct. It's holding a virtual public meeting tonight. Charmaine thanks for joining us. Thank you. You're holding this meeting tonight to discuss deescalation tactics, to get some public input on that. Right. What are some of the tactics you would like to see San Diego police adopt? Speaker 2: 00:51 We are holding a meeting tonight to get public feedback, as well as input on Mmm. Something that the CRB put in recommended two years ago, too. The San Diego police department, which was to adopt a deescalation policy, which model is the Baltimore policy. So that's something that the board will be discussing tonight, as well as, um, the protest that's been happening locally and police presence with those protests. Speaker 1: 01:18 Can you give us a sense of what the Baltimore program is like that that could provide some inspiration to San Diego? Speaker 2: 01:25 Yes. It requires offices too deescalate situations when looking at the totality of the circumstances and some of those, um, they use various techniques such as tone of voice Mmm. Barriers distance between themselves and the individuals we assess in the situations. So they like at least nine different techniques that officers can use. Um, when they are trying to deescalate the situations. Speaker 1: 01:53 Can you give us a, an idea of what that would like in practice in action? Can you give us an example? Speaker 2: 01:58 An example would be if you have a situation where, um, an officer arrives on the scene and, um, an incident is unfolding and, you know, rather than Russian to the person, they take the time to assess the scene and, um, you know, call for backup and, you know, put a barrier in place in front of them. And just take the time to talk to the individual, um, instead of, um, Russian and put in use of force on that individual to try to deescalate things. Speaker 1: 02:31 What kind of results has the city of Baltimore seen with their new program? Speaker 2: 02:36 Um, you know, that program took effect after the, um, the incident that happened with Freddie gray, Baltimore it's on the consent decree where they had to make a lot of changes. Um, I don't know exactly. I haven't been following the results of that, but I know the CRB when they were looking at the different cities and their, um, uses of force and deescalation, they chose at that time because it, you know, it was something that they wanted to see San Diego put in place because San Diego at that time was moving towards having more training for its offices in deescalation. So as far as the board, it was actually, um, moving towards, if the department has training, there should be some type of policy to put in place that requires offices to quality that training that's being put in place. And that would hold the officers accountable as well. Speaker 1: 03:29 No, there was the pair of new laws that went into effect in January, including the assembly woman, Shirley Weber's AB three 92, which allows police to use lethal force only when necessary. And that led the SDPD to update its use of force and deescalation training earlier this year. How did that change things and would this deescalation proposal that may be coming up, be in addition to those changes Speaker 2: 03:54 when we received the police departments, revise your support policy last week. Mmm. You know, that came out based on also what happened with AB three 92, in addition to the CRPS recommendation two years ago. And what was still missing from what I hear from CRB leadership was that there was still, there was still no requirement for officers to follow deescalation, to deescalate a situation. So that's something that they will be discussing tonight. Um, and then Mmm. Deciding on whether or not they want to take action on how to proceed. Speaker 1: 04:32 You mentioned that deescalation is not required. Is that one of the things that you feel could make a significant change? Speaker 2: 04:40 I guess I do believe that it would make a significant change. There's a difference between when you say should, and there's a difference when you use Shalon and Musk. So, um, when you use the term shell that makes it required as well as must instead of should. So I think that's one of the differences. Um, when we were talking about holding officers accountable and being able to deescalate situations, if they have a chance to do so, Speaker 1: 05:09 no, this week, Mary Kevin Faulkner came out and supportive and November ballot measure that would create a new commission that would investigate complaints of police, officer misconduct and supporters say it would have more authority than the board that, uh, you are on. What is your stance on this new commission? Speaker 2: 05:26 I am in support of the new commission. I think it was strengthened the work of the CRB. Um, it's a hybrid model, meaning that it has, it's a review board plus it's, um, it has investigators and then also it will put the independent council. And so the charter, the CRB right now has independence counsel, but it's not, um, in the charter. So that can change at any time. So I think this was strengthened the work of the board. And so I am in full support of it. Speaker 1: 05:56 And finally, can people participate Speaker 2: 05:58 in tonight's meeting? They can participate by going to the CRBs website or the office of boards and commissions website and fill out, we have public comment on web it's called web form. There's got good. There's a link that's on the CRBs agenda that they can click on and fill that out. Um, and then, okay, provide public comment on deescalation, that topic of deescalation, and also what protests, because what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be reading the comments. Some of the comments, we had an abundance of comments that came in. Um, most of them were we're in support of the independent commission. And then we had, um, and also defunding the police, but our topics tonight are going to be, um, deescalation policy and protests. Speaker 1: 06:45 So that's the city of San Diego's community review board and police practices, website, and Charmaine. What will happen to the comments that people submit tonight? Speaker 2: 06:55 The board will listen to those comments, and then they're going to discuss the policy and take into everybody's comments into consideration, and then move forward with possible action. The action. Um, it can be a motion for the board to draft a letter, a revised letter to the police chief, which has more explicit language than the original letter had for the recommendation for the escalation policy. Speaker 1: 07:18 Have you had any kind of a reaction from the police department to that? Uh, those policies changes? No. So we've been speaking with showman Mosley, who's executive director of the city's community review board on police practices. Thank you very much for joining us Charmaine. Thank you.