This report was updated Aug. 26 to report that the police union had deleted its controversial video from YouTube.
The San Jose police union, the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, on Thursday issued a scathing indictment of the police department’s internal affairs procedures and demanded that City Hall improve its oversight of those procedures.
The union demanded an end to what it called “a broken discipline process within the San Jose Police Department,” and released a video it contended “details criminal, unconstitutional, unethical and incompetent actions that are sanctioned by SJPD command staff and city administration leadership that have ruined police officer lives.”
A week later, the police union deleted the video from YouTube, with no announcement, or explanation.
In a statement released before the union’s noon press conference at union headquarters on North Fourth Street, president Steve Slack said the video shows evidence of “rampant corruption, falsehoods and incompetence.”
Later in the day Thursday, City Attorney Nora Frimann responded by vigorously defending the actions of the Police Department and city officials.
City attorney says police union distorts the truth
In response to questions from San Jose Inside, Frimann said the police union revelations in the edited videos were efforts “to magnify and mischaracterize selected information...by crafting sound bytes from deposition testimony taken out of context” that were “disengenuous” distortions of the truth.
“We demand a fair, transparent and just discipline process,” said Slack. “What we have now is broken and riddled with petty vindictiveness, incompetence and outright corruption. When an official document is altered, with white-out, of all things, to reach a different conclusion, it should spur the police chief, city manager and city attorney to demand reform and hold wrongdoers accountable rather than doubling down to protect corruption.”
San Jose Deputy Police Brian Spears, in a confidential deposition video released by police officers' union.
The video contained excerpts of videos from confidential depositions by San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph, Deputy Police Chief Brian Spears and two internal affairs lieutenants, and quoted, from city documents, Allison Suggs, assistant director of the city’s Office of Human Relations.
Union spokesman Tom Saggau told San Jose Inside Thurday that "the only reason we found out about what they [city officials] were doing was because the city proposed a new process that we agreed to that allowed for expanded discovery. Under the old rules we would have never known what they did."
The videos and documents released by the union were related to five different disciplinary cases, Saggau said.
The police union video, a compilation of multiple deposition videos, was narrated by Jim Shore, an attorney and partner with Massing Adam Jasmine Adam.
In one video, Spears appears to admit that he altered official internal affairs investigative documents, but declined to say whether he was ordered to do so.
Deputy chief admits he altered report
“Spears altered official investigative documents with a white-out, by changing a sergeant’s official written submission from a ‘personnel matter,’ which called for no further action against an officer, to a ‘request for department-initiated investigation’ – a significant escalation – and one that forever changed the course of one officer’s career when he was later terminated,” the unidentified narrator said in the police union video released today.
Spears “concealed unlawful conduct for more than two years,” the union alleged.
The union also said that San Jose Police Lt. John Barg “submitted four search warrant affidavits, under penalty of perjury, to a Superior Court Judge that were untruthful and contained material omissions and material misrepresentations.” In an answer to a question about this in the video deposition, Barg said, “At that point, no, I guess that was not true.”
Saggau said Barg's actions were in connection with an investigation of San Jose police officer Michael Richmond, who had been terminated in 2023 for alleged misconduct, then reinstated this spring on appeal.
In March, an arbitrator ordered Richmond’s full reinstatement as a city police officer, and later found the department owed him about $300,000 in back pay and benefits.
The arbitrator also ordered the city to pay $1.3 million in legal fees, finding that Barg's actions violated Richmond’s Fourth Amendment rights when he passed along information from the criminal investigation to Police Department's Internal Affairs investigators.
Frimann at odds with arbitrator
In her statement to San Jose Inside, Frimann said Richmond was terminated “for conduct unbecoming of an officer, misuse of authority, malfeasance, misconduct, and dishonesty in violation of the San Jose Municipal Code and the Police Department Duty Manual."
Frimann said Internal Affairs investigators had determined that Richmond made a phone call in which he pretended to be a Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputy and threatened the person he was calling that she was being evicted from her residence and needed to immediately vacate.
“The phony call was made while Officer Richmond was on duty, but it was not related to his work as a San Jose police officer,” Frimann wrote. “Instead, Officer Richmond made the call to help a personal friend in a dispute with a tenant. Rather than acknowledge his error, Officer Richmond lied.”
The union also said that four days after the District Attorney’s Office had refused to file criminal charges in Barg’s investigation, Barg “violated the court’s order to seal the use of information gathered in his criminal investigation, [and] sent all search warrant materials to an Internal Affairs sergeant to start an administrative investigation.”
Frimann disagreed with the arbitrator, and said Barg's actions pasing along the evidence in a criminal investigation to internal affairs officers were legal and justified.
“There is no authority that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act prohibits such use, and it is difficult to believe that those who drafted that legislation thought it would be used to shield a police officer from discipline based on evidence obtained in a related criminal investigation," she told San Jose Inside.
Police chief explains training, oversight
In the video released today by the union, Joseph attempted to explain why there are no specific training procedures for internal affairs investigators.
“I don’t know that there’s specific training in the way that you asked that question,” the chief said in the deposition. “There’s not specific training for a lieutenant on the precise topic of determining the thoroughness and fairness of an internal affairs investigator’s work.”
Union narrator Shore commented that “While the chief insisted that no training is needed, his command officers routinely struggle to meet their obligations under the department’s duty manual and admit they are not even aware those obligations even exist.”
The police chief’s “assessment of his officers’ capabilities just doesn’t sync with the reality in his own department,” the union’s video narrator said.
In the video, Shore said the city’s review process “meant to provide oversight and accountability to the discipline process exists in name only.”
“The buck should stop at the city manager’s office, the final quality control check,” according to the union. “Instead, it’s become a rubber stamp for shoddy work.”
As an example, the video narrator said that Suggs, of the Human Resources Department, “spent a total of 13 minutes before deciding to terminate an officer.”
The investigation materials in the case cited, but not identified, by the union “consisted of nearly 15,000 pages of documents, hours of recorded interviews and body camera footage, reams of work that should have been reviewed but were not.”
The police union said: “Since 2015, the City Manager’s Office has been on notice that its oversight procedures needed an overhaul. The city’s own auditor recommended that the city establish minimum training requirements to improve the essential skills of its investigators, yet here we are a decade later: The same problems exist and there is no recognition of the need for reform – not yet.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
While the City has neglected to ensure that its employees’ rights are not violated it has spent a large part of its budget on DEI and forcing its employees to watch videos of various sexual preferences while turning a blind eye to the violations done to regular employees by of anyone who identifies as a special class. The abuse is citywide and rampant.
The whole City needs an overhaul.
Regardless of who, if anyone, is in the right here. I truly wish each of us had an advocate looking out for us the way Sgt. Steve Slack looks out for Ofc. Michael Richmond.
Someone should look into the percentage of Officers who wanted New Blood in the office of Chief at SJPD when Chief Mata retired
Over 50 percent wanted new blood – someone who would actually reward competence and merit – not just move his friends forward
This is FACT
Ask and you will find that this is True
The story says 1993. I hate autocorrect. Was that year significant?
Thank you. First reference to the termination was 2023, which is the correct date. The typo you referenced was deleted.
Agreed. Richmond clearly has friends in high places. He’s the only officer the POA has burned other members to the ground for. His parents must have made a heck of a donation to them. Sad.
If an officer were to use white-out to falsify a police report, changing material facts, then testifying under oath to such under the threat of perjury, and such testimony led to the railroading of a suspect, that officer would be fired, no ifs ands or buts. Anybody that falsified search warrants, police reports, etc reg needs to be fired. Even more so if the guilty party is in the chain of command.
Oh my God!!!
This seems to go beyond a simple labor dispute; it strikes at the heart of public trust and safety. There needs to be a serious, independent review of these claims to restore faith in the system for everyone involved—the public and the officers themselves.
You are correct.
We should ask ourselves why Mayor Mahan doesn’t care at all that employees in San Jose are being treated with disrespect at least and having their legal rights mowed over by those who are in charge but really shouldn’t be.
Why are you so quiet Mayor Mahan? Why does the Brass at SJPD get a pass?
Why does the City Manager?
Hmmm?
President Trump’s administration should get a tap on the shoulder
I trust the Police, they continue to support Plata Arroyo.
Its the OFFICE of HUMAN RELATIONS I will never trust, she lied to me for 6 months.
In Community Spirit,
Danny Garza
President
Plata Arroyo Neighborhood Association and Gateway East N.A.C.
The peace officers union, in San Jose, is the major reason citizens lost faith with the majority of police officers, whom do an exemplary professional job.
It is the union and not internal affairs whom covers up and distorts unprofessional police conduct.
in order to secure payments and retirement for police officers gone astray.
Yes, I know what I am talking about. And what I know is not hearsay.
Police officers duties have become more difficult due to lack of respect, caused by the continued cases of police coverup.
Not to mention forcing City managers to look away or sweep issues under the rug.
I suggest the police union refrain from politics.. .
I spent over twenty years as a prosecutor, both with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and the United States Department of Justice. SJPD Lieutenant John Barg stands out as one of the three best officers, agents, and investigators with whom I ever had the privilege to work. He is brilliant, humble, hard-working, and unfailingly honest. If he said something in a sworn affidavit, then it was either (1) true, or (2) he believed it to be true at the time. Taking a one-sentence snippet from a deposition and trying to characterize it as an admission of falsehood is dishonest and disgraceful.
I cannot understand why an arbitrator would rule that it was improper to pass along information, obtained as a result of a criminal search warrant, to Internal Affairs. I am aware of no statute or rule preventing such use.
Moreover, to the extent this reporting — or the union, or the arbitrator — is attempting to call Lt. Barg’s integrity into question, they are full of [redacted, but you know what I want to say]. There is simply no finer public servant than Lt. John Barg, and to suggest otherwise is a calumny.
Another thing: Whoever writes the headings needs to read the actual words that come under it. The heading “Deputy Chief Admits He Altered Report” is just plain false. Read the paragraph that follows: the deputy chief admits no such thing; the union alleges it, but no one admits it. This is just sloppy writing, or maybe the author submits the article and someone else inserts the headings; either way, it’s below average journalism.
P.S. My prior comment has been “awaiting moderation” for coming up on 24 hours. Did I strike a nerve?