By Lei-Chala Wilson
Guest Commentary
In my years as President of the San Diego Branch of the NAACP, I have worked with retiring San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne on a number of occasions. We are sorry to see him go. The Chief has always been very accessible and willing to meet with our members to address concerns, most recently regarding allegations of racial profiling by officers. Assistant Chief Shelley Zimmerman often accompanied the Chief to public meetings and participated in private ones where we discussed concrete policy and training changes aimed at improving officer contact with community members.
It seems very likely that the City Council on Tuesday will support Mayor-Elect Faulconer’s selection of Zimmerman as Lansdowne’s successor. Given the gravity of the issues facing the department and the degree to which community trust is strained, the NAACP would have preferred a national search for a new police chief and a process that included significant community input. This was a missed opportunity for the new mayor to demonstrate his commitment to engaging the community, particularly with neighborhoods south of the 8.
Nonetheless, we are ready and eager to work with Mayor-Elect Faulconer’s choice for police chief. We appreciate his interest in a quick and smooth transition. And Zimmerman’s recent oversight of training and retention, as well as her 31 years of experience with the department, mean that she should be acutely aware of the state of the department. We are encouraged by her public commitment this week to follow through on the exiting Chief Lansdowne’s promise of an independent audit.
In recent weeks, we, along with the ACLU, have been meeting with Chief Lansdowne, Executive Chief David Ramirez, and Assistant Chief Shelley Zimmerman to discuss concerns about how some community contacts are conducted. In the experience of many young men of color, an interaction with an officer often begins not with “Hello” or “May I see your ID?” but with “Are you on probation or parole?” They may be ordered to sit on the curb even when there is no apparent safety need and where they run the risk of their children or neighbors walking by. These practices are humiliating and often not necessary. We have been encouraged by how responsive the department was to drafting new procedures that would significantly reduce both of these practices. We hope that those changes will be finalized and made official department policy under the new Chief.
We look forward to continuing to work with Zimmerman, should her selection be confirmed, to address policies and practices to strengthen community trust in and cooperation with the San Diego Police Department. We urge the new Chief to bring in the Department of Justice to conduct an audit with teeth – one that will include some measure of accountability so that the department makes the changes necessary to minimize officer misconduct, to ensure quick resolution where it happens, and to build trust with all San Diego communities.
The SDPD and the NAACP share a commitment to community safety. It is our strong belief that that can best be achieved when officers and community members can build relationships and treat each other with dignity and respect. As Chief Lansdowne said recently, “It’s all about public trust.”
Lei-Chala I. Wilson, Esq. is President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), San Diego Branch. She was with the Law Offices of the San Diego Public Defender for over 24 years.
