San Jose voters sent a strong message at the polls in regard to social justice issues and police reform.
78 percent of voters said yes to Measure G, which will expand the powers of the city’s independent police auditor.
“All of the complaints are investigated by the police, so you have a situation in San Jose, the police investigate themselves. And the community have said that’s not good enough,” said retired judge LaDoris Cordell.
Similar police accountability measures passed in San Francisco and Oakland as well.
Cordell has also served as the city’s Independent Police Auditor and says before Measure G, the role carried almost no practical power. “We had no ability to make findings, to direct investigations to be more objective. All we could do was give an opinion… it was very, very frustrating.”
She says it is especially important to have a third party investigate claims of racial bias, which the city’s police department has been accused of in the past.
“It is very difficult for the police to be objective when they are accused of using racial bias. You need somebody on the outside to look at it.”
And the department’s record on these investigations speaks for itself.
“In the history of the city of San Jose, even though there have been a number of these kinds of complaints, only one in its entire history has been sustained,” said Cordell.
She wants to see the police department’s internal affairs body eliminated so that all of those investigations will be conducted by a third party.
Measure G expands the auditor’s authority and increases their access to internal use-of-force investigations.
“With this new procedure, you’re going to have transparency and you’re going to have an independent body look at, investigating and making findings about police misconduct.”
Things Cordell says are necessary to achieve accountability and repair trust in the community.