A string of residents, activists and a couple of city-appointed commissioners are raising concerns that Santa Ana elected officials don’t have the guts to let an independent outsider probe police misconduct complaints.
The concerns come as scores of residents and the ACLU recently railed against the police department’s response to the anti-ICE protests, saying officers were openly hostile to residents firing pepper balls and deploying tear gas against them.
[Read: Santa Ana Residents Demand Mayor Resign, Citing Weak Response to ICE Raids, Protests]
Residents are still waiting for officials to publicly report back how many non-lethal projectiles and chemical agents were fired at protestors.
As they wait, officials are considering a host of proposed changes at their 5:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday that would essentially strip the city’s recently hired police oversight director from probing police misconduct complaints before the police department does so first.
The changes are being considered in an election environment where the police union has become one of the city’s largest spenders on campaigns.
“These amendments don’t improve oversight. They dismantled it. They stripped the commission of its power to conduct independent investigations and reduces it to passive reviewers of select internal affair cases only after SAPD has already concluded its process,” said Police Oversight Commissioner Carlos Perea at a city council meeting earlier this month.
Perea – Executive Director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice – said that for over a year commissioners have been receiving misconduct complaints but have not been able to look into them because city council members had not hired an oversight director – a role he said was essential to the function of the commission.
City officials finally filled that position at their last meeting earlier this month and postponed a discussion on the proposed changes to the commission.
They say the proposed changes are needed to adhere to state law, shrink the scope of the commission’s oversight power when it comes to reviewing complaints about the police department and to expand commissioners’ training on Santa Ana police practices.
Officials also say the proposed changes are needed to keep sensitive information from the public in order to avoid lawsuits as well as to ensure the authority of the commission’s director doesn’t supersede the city manager’s oversight power, according to a city staff report.
When asked why the changes were being considered, City Spokesman Paul Eakins deferred to the staff report.
City Councilman Johnathan Ryan Hernandez said the proposed changes to the commission was the “bidding” of Mayor Valerie Amezcua – whose reelection campaign last year received nearly $100,000 from the police union.
He also called it quid pro quo politics and an effort to give police total immunity.
“That’s Valerie Amezcua and the POA’s goal is to give police absolute immunity for their crimes,” Hernandez said in a Thursday phone interview.
“It’s to give the police immunity when they shoot your loved one who’s unarmed, it’s to give the police immunity when they want to cover up each other’s crimes. It’s to give the police immunity so that they can continue to fund her reelection campaign.”
The police union spent over $50,000 against Hernandez’s reelection campaign last year.
Amezcua did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Hernandez said Amezcua started an ad hoc committee that included herself, Police union backed Councilman Phil Bacerra and Councilman Ben Vazquez – a critic of the police union – to review the ordinance despite the city council not wanting to revisit it.
“What you’re seeing is organized. You’re seeing police attempt to run your city. You’re seeing police attempting to control public policy and to an extent, you are seeing police attempting to increase their government immunity,” Hernandez said.
Bacerra, who received over $82,000 in support from the police union in his 2022 city council campaign, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Vazquez said an ad hoc was convened to review the oversight commission after Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna sued the county’s Civilian Oversight Commission over their attempts to get use of force records.
He also said city staff told officials that it wasn’t advisable to have two investigations into alleged misconduct at the same time.
Vazquez added he does not support the proposed changes to the commission.
“The commission wasn’t there to review, they were there to investigate and I think it’s still possible,” he said in a Thursday phone interview.
The police union also spent over $71,000 against Vazquez’s mayoral campaign against Amezcua last year.
Jessie Lopez, who previously faced an unsuccessful recall effort by the police union, said the council at large learned about the suggested changes when they were made public to everyone else in the community and she herself has questions about the proposal.
“I know that they’re going to, most likely, say we have to be in line with state law. We don’t want to open up ourselves to litigation, the normal talking points. But up until now, we haven’t received any litigation regarding the ordinance, and so not every single change, you know, based on my assumption, has to do with being in compliance with the law,” she said.
Councilman David Penaloza, whose council campaign was heavily funded by the police union, and Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan did not respond to a request for comment last week.
Gutting Police Oversight?
City officials adopted an ordinance establishing a police oversight commission in November of 2022 with the goal of increasing police accountability and trust in the department by investigating police misconduct
The original ordinance tasked the commission’s independent oversight director with investigating and making recommendations to elected officials and the police chief about police practices, officer involved shootings and uses of force.
One of the main suggested changes to the commission’s authority is not allowing commissioners to review complaints regarding police killings, sexual assault, unlawful arrest, excessive force and dishonest until Internal Affairs has investigated the complaint.
City council members finally hired the commission’s first director, T. Jack Morse, at the same meeting Perea spoke – almost three years after they first passed an ordinance to establish the oversight body.
At their July 1 meeting, elected officials voted unanimously to approve a 2-year $250,000 contract with Morse, a civil rights attorney and an active reserve officer with the Los Angeles Police Department who has served on OC’s Office of Independent Review.
Morse said no matter what oversight model Santa Ana officials adopt, there will be effective oversight of the police department.
“The police oversight commission will be releasing public reports assessing and analyzing the police department’s IA investigation,” he said in a Monday phone interview.
“For those investigations that are deficient. We will document why they are deficient, and we will provide clear recommendations as to how those issues can be addressed.”
Morse said oversight is more than just focusing on individuals but looking at the police department as a whole including its policies and training.
“Problems in police departments often are not rooted in individual investigations. They’re grounded in poor policies and training. And in Santa Ana, the police oversight commission is poised to address those issues,” he said.
At the same meeting Morse was hired, a host of residents and activists spoke out against the proposed changes to the commission, arguing it would weaken its role and make it ineffective.
Jennifer Rojas, Development & Operations Director for the advocacy group Chispa, said the proposed changes are rollbacks to ensure the commission fails.
“They create the illusion of oversight while stripping away every tool necessary to hold police accountable. Let me be absolutely clear again, bad oversight is worse than no oversight at all,” Rojas said at the July 1 meeting.
“A hollow commission with no authority does not protect this community. It protects police misconduct.”
Amalia Mejia, one of the city’s police oversight commissioners, said the commission was not apprised of the proposed changes at their previous meeting and said it was not a coincidence that the changes are being proposed after the city hired a director.
“How unreasonable is it to be willing to pay $250,000 on salary for an oversight director, but not have a proper commission working to actually address the issues it was intended to,” said Mejia at the July 1 meeting.
“The public should be concerned that the council is willing to spend taxpayer money without increasing transparency and accountability.”
It comes after a majority of Santa Ana city council members voted almost two years ago to quietly pay out former City Manager Kristine Ridge over $600,000 after Ridge alleged Amezcua created a hostile workplace environment for her.
She also alleged elected officials pressured her to boost the pay and pension of former police union president Gerry Serrano.
A year after the approved pay out, investigators could not sustain allegations that Amezcua violated the city charter, code of ethics, harassed Ridge or interfered with her work after Ridge refused to participate in their probe.
Ridge’s departure came weeks after former Police Chief David Valentin announced his retirement in a letter, seemingly pointing to the police union’s political reach over city hall.
Police Chief Robert Rodriguez and City Manager Alvaro Nuñez were brought on as their permanent replacements after serving in the positions in acting roles.
Other Proposed Changes to Santa Ana’s Police Oversight Commission
City leaders are also looking to strip the police oversight director’s power to subpoena witnesses, compel the production of evidence and investigate misconduct complaints.
Instead, the director will review submitted complaints and pass them on to the police chief who will review and start an internal affairs probe.
Once the internal affairs investigation is complete the findings would be sent to the director who would review and make recommendations to the commission.
Commissioners would then make their own recommendations based on the findings and pass them back to the police chief through the director.
Both the director and the commission would no longer have full access to all police records and data but only relevant information from the department related to their oversight duties under the changes proposed by city leaders.
City officials are also considering removing the requirement to provide 10 days written notice of when the commission will meet behind closed doors to discuss the alleged misconduct of a specific police officer to both the complainant and the cop.
The changes would also require commissioners get training from Santa Ana Police personnel – something that was not explicitly required before.
Commissioners could also receive training from “third party bodies” and groups with experience in police department internal affairs investigations and civilian review audits.
They would also have to go on an eight hour ride along with the Santa Ana Police Department within three months of their appointment to the commission.
Commissioners would also have to complete eight various Santa Ana Police Academy courses within a year and a half of their appointment.
Failing to do the ride along or completing the police academy classes would result in removal of the commissioner from the oversight body.
Rather than making recommendations for police practices and procedures to the police chief and the city council, commissioners make their suggestions about policies solely to the city manager.
The proposed language changes would remove the word “Independent” from the police oversight director’s title and would also let the city council remove commissioners for violating their confidentiality agreement.
Violating the agreement could also result in criminal or civil penalties, according to the changes to the original commission ordinance.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.