SAN JOSE — One small bit at a time, the San Jose Police Department is beginning to look like its old self.
Granted, the department is just a few months into its rebuild after a decade when it shrunk by more than a third to just over 900 officers, amid austerity measures and a protracted political fight over pension reform. But with a sharp pay bump, robust academy classes and now, a stream of interest from outside cops, there are signs of a rebound that would have seemed impossible a couple of years ago.
Officer Kyle Burchfiel is an example of that momentum. Burchfiel, who has been a Palo Alto police officer, was sworn in by Chief Eddie Garcia at police headquarters Monday in a quiet, low-key ceremony. But it had outsized significance to a police force that for several years completely lost its ability to attract outside officers to join the ranks.
“I’m very excited to patrol where I’m from,” said Burchfiel, a Pioneer High School alum. “I grew up when it was the (nation’s) safest city, and I can’t wait to be part of getting it back to that.”
Last year, SJPD made no outside hires, a metric often used by police brass to gauge the department’s competitiveness in attracting top talent. The year before, there was one.
As of Monday, it has hired or is in the process of hiring 17 officers from other departments, all since about February when labor peace was achieved in the form of a hard-fought contract that committed healthy raises for the rank-and-file.
Additionally, Garcia said at least a dozen officers who previously left SJPD for other agencies, amid the political turmoil that marred the first half of the decade, have contacted him to re-join SJPD.
“We just needed to be competitive again,” Garcia said. “People didn’t want to leave this place, but they did for financial reasons. We fixed the issue.”
The issue was on the mind of Officer Adam Hutson, a seasoned investigator who spent 14 years at SJPD who has worked the last five as a Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputy. For Hutson, the past couple of months have been a homecoming for the Oak Grove High School and San Jose State University alum.
“At the time, morale was an all-time low,” Hutson said, recalling his departure in 2012. “But there was always something burning in my heart, wanting to go back. San Jose is home to me.”
Hutson said he wrote to the chief, and his old colleagues urged him to consider a return. He noted there were no hard feelings when made his choice to don an SJPD patch again.
“I came back and I was expecting I was going to get ostracized,” he said. “Everyone welcomed me with open arms.”
Garcia made a point to credit the officers who weathered years of overstretched patrols and short staffing to ensure the department still resembled itself once the pay and benefit disputes were resolved.
“We wouldn’t be where we’re at if it weren’t for the officers who chose to stay here,” Garcia said. “They didn’t allow this police department to crumble.”
The police union hopes that the new staffing trajectory will mean relief soon for those same officers.
“Experienced officers laterally transferring here is welcome news and it’s one of the antidotes that we hope cures the SJPD from the crippling loss of hundreds of officers these past several years,” said Tom Saggau, spokesman for the San Jose Police Officers’ Association.
Garcia is the first to point out that the hiring news is at best just an opening salvo into restoring a net loss of nearly 500 officers since 2008, a year that saw a zenith of 1,400 cops sworn to protect the city. The department is currently authorized to have 1,109 officers.
“It’s still early, but these indicators justify our collective hard work in getting efforts like Measure F over the goal line,” said Mayor Sam Liccardo, referring to the ballot measure that codified the new labor contract. “Seeing full academies and welcoming former San Jose PD officers back to the family are a welcome sign to both city leadership and thousands of our residents.”
Hutson also hopes that the return of him and other police veterans can help restore institutional knowledge to the department.
“We’re only going to get back to that by getting skilled officers back,” Hutson said. “We don’t just need warm bodies. We need smart officers who are going to reflect the community and do good police work.”
That idea resonates with community leaders like Walter Wilson, a member of the Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet of Silicon Valley and longtime social-rights activist.
“Those officers who came back, are more significant than the next two recruitment classes,” Wilson said. “The more experienced officers are the ones who wind up making better decisions.”
Wilson also said the rebuilding of SJPD is an opportunity to infuse more minority representation into the police force, noting that there is only one black officer in the senior command staff.
“Bringing these new people in, what message are you sending if 90 percent of the captains are white?” he said. “They need to pay close attention to diversity in hiring.”
Garcia agreed with the sentiment and is pushing diversity in recruitment and hiring to eventually increase minority leadership in the upper ranks.
“We should strive to mirror the community we serve,” he said. “We’re leaving no stone unturned. We need to have a diverse pool to promote a diverse pool.”
