San Diego law enforcement misconduct investigations now public under new state laws
Newly-implemented California laws are shedding light on how law enforcement agencies investigate and discipline officers. This new mandated transparency reveals dozens of local cases where the San Diego Police Department found its own officers used excessive force, exhibited racist behavior, sexually harassed members of the public or fellow officers, conducted unlawful searches, failed to use body cameras properly and more.
This San Diego Police Department body camera video shows an incident that sparked an internal affairs investigation. That moment occurs at about 18:20 into the the clip. The video shows McNett handcuffing the woman after she starts walking away from him. He tells her it’s illegal to hold a lit or unlit cigarette in her mouth on the boardwalk. A few minutes later, she’s uncuffed and given a citation for smoking on the boardwalk. The internal affairs investigation found that she was not breaking the law and was wrongfully arrested. In addition, investigators found McNett improperly used his handcuffs by not “double locking” them.
Over the last eight years, the San Diego Police Department has also disciplined several of its own officers for sexually offensive behavior. After that statement, Johnson gave the waitress an official police badge sticker. On the back, Johnson wrote, “Ready to serve me?”, along with a drawing of a smiley face with a tongue sticking out. He included a phone number with the number 69 underlined.Internal Affairs documents regarding the investigation of Sgt. Buddy Johnson included this image of a police badge sticker, which included writing.
"It was eye-opening,” said Sharmaine Moseley, the interim director for the City of San Diego’s Commission on Police Practices. This San Diego Police Department body camera video shows an incident that sparked an internal affairs investigation. That moment occurs at about 2:15 into the the clip.“There was a lot of untruthfulness in that one case, right,” Moseley said. “So that was disturbing to me, that there was untruthfulness.”
“What you don’t see in the paperwork is that these disciplinary actions can have a huge, long-lasting impact on an officer’s career,” Wilson said.“That wasn’t the deal for what they signed up for,” Wilson said. Between 2014 and 2021, the department fired at least one officer for misconduct, and three others resigned. Montgomery Steppe feels that number should be higher.
That “paper in your file” seems to be a common route for discipline. We reviewed 68 sustained findings of officer misconduct since 2014. 16 officers were disciplined with a letter of reprimand. However, we found several examples where disciplinary documents were missing for officers who are still active in the department.
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