The tragic events of recent weeks involving fatal police interactions with African American residents in Minneapolis, Louisville and Atlanta have shocked our nation and brought renewed attention to legitimate grievances from people of color about their treatment by law enforcement officers.
Demands for police reform have taken center stage after the tragic killing — what we consider murder — of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department, and other recent deaths at the hands of law enforcement. The protests sweeping our nation call out names including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks.
Critically important to these calls for reform are the emphatic voices of police chiefs and police unions that have expressed disgust at Floyd’s killing and sincere sorrow for his surviving family.
As chiefs of police in San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles, we join with the men and women of our police departments, sworn and civilian, to send one unified message: We hear you.
We applaud the members of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, San Francisco Police Officers Association and Los Angeles Police Protective League for their compassionate expressions of sorrow after the tragic events involving police officer interactions with unarmed African American residents. We salute the unions’ call for needed police reforms, denunciation of racism in policing and repudiation of racist police officers.
We support their proposed first steps of reform and urge swift local and state legislative action to codify these recommendations so they carry the force of law and drive the cultural shift that can achieve lasting social change in law enforcement.
Reforms must do more to strengthen police chiefs’ ability to hold officers accountable regardless of current systems for appealing discipline.
A statewide effort to improve crowd control training in also needed. A coordinated look at our methods would reveal mistakes and improve our tactics in this ever-more-challenging mission.
We believe policing will improve faster if we collectively implement the proven and successful practices of our peers.
In San Jose, we now better understand from independent analysis how our use-of-force data intersects with race. Our interactive use-of-force data dashboard is available to the public. Through an independent analysis, we have similarly reviewed our pedestrian and vehicle stops. Data-driven decisions are now happening in San Jose but we lack similarly sized police departments to compare ourselves with because this type of analysis is still rare.
At the same time, we must join with our communities of color and neighborhood residents most impacted by crime to begin redefining our roles as police officers.
We are eager to begin community conversation of alternatives to sending police officers into situations where mental health, violence interruption and harm reduction approaches by trained professionals in those disciplines may offer more effective community-centered resolutions. Investing more resources in our neighborhoods will reduce the over-reliance on police, while keeping these communities safe.
We must enable our officers to spend more time building solid, productive relationships in neighborhoods through activities that extend well beyond enforcement.
We must also be mindful of the needs of our officers. Ongoing training to increase officer impartiality and fairness requires a long-term commitment and funding. Investing in wellness programs would acknowledge the emotional toll that policing can have on our personnel.
These initiatives, and our willingness to hear and meaningfully respond to the peaceful protests on our streets, offer our cities the real potential for achieving lasting, forward-thinking and comprehensive policing reform.
Our police departments, like many others, have made tremendous strides to increase accountability, transparency and community engagement. Most of our officers are committed to these efforts and sacrifice daily for the communities they serve.
Yet we know we have much more work to do in reimagining policing that addresses issues of racial injustice in America, particularly in Black neighborhoods, and we acknowledge our historic role in these inequities. Police management and labor in each of our cities hear you, ‘the people.’
We embrace your call for reform, and we’re committed to creating the lasting change this moment demands.
Edgardo Garcia is chief of the San Jose Police Department. William Scott is chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Michel Moore is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
