SOS (…- - -…) is the commonly known Morse code distress symbol, not an acronym. That said, many think of “save our ship” or “save our souls when the term is used. During my tenure as a principal, school board member and SJI columnist, I have a different distress signal. If I could, I would tap out the code “Save Our Schools” every single hour of every day in all cities across Silicon Valley.
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DA Office Completes MACSA Investigation
UPDATE: The District Attorney’s Office is charging former MACSA CEO Olivia Soza-Mendiola and CFO Benjamin Tan with grand theft for illegally diverting more than $1 million that should have gone to employee retirement accounts. Check back later in the day for a story about the charges.—Editor
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office plans to hold a press conference at 11am Thursday unveiling its findings from the investigation into the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA). The announcement will come 28 months after former DA Dolores Carr was notified that MACSA, a nonprofit organization, stole $400,000 from employee pension funds from two of the schools it operated.
Independent Police Auditor Notes Lag in Internal Affairs Investigations
The office of the Independent Police Auditor, led by retired judge LaDoris Cordell, conducted “unprecedented outreach” in 2011, according to its annual report released this week. As a result, the office received a 26 percent increase in the amount of complaints filed against the San Jose Police Department compared to a year prior. The IPA provided 30 recommendations, some of which were as small as prohibiting tobacco chewing to as large as overhauling Internal Affairs.
How Police Profiling Can Go Wrong
In a recent civil case, a San Jose police officer was found liable for using excessive force on Danny Piña, who was misidentified as a gang member. Piña was wearing a red shirt and police stopped him for riding a bike with a missing headlamp. The jury found that the officer, Allan De La Cruz, used excessive force when he broke Piña’s nose and dislocated his shoulder. I have a 16-year-old son who had a similar experience of being misidentified by police, based on what he looks like and there being a gang presence in the neighborhood.
Arrest Made for Hells Angels Funeral Death
A four-month manhunt ended Saturday with the arrest of Steve Ruiz, who is suspected of killing fellow Hells Angels motorcycle club member Steve Tausan at a funeral during October of last year. Ruiz will reportedly be charged with homicide Wednesday.
Shooting Shows Need for Better Gun Laws
A 9-year-old boy in Washington, described as frightened and crying, sat in front of a judge in juvenile court waiting to see if he would be granted bail for a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. The boy found a gun at his mother’s house, put it in his backpack and took it to school. When he put his backpack down, the gun went off, critically wounding an 8-year-old girl. This comes from a brief Associated Press article in a local paper. There are questions that went through my mind about this story: How is a nine-year-old competent to stand trial? And, Washington State grants bail for kids? Thee state of California doesn’t do that–isn’t bail to make sure someone shows up for court? And why did he bring the gun to school?
Police Budget: We Get, You Get
For this weeks blog, I am continuing the discussion about providing a fixed percentage of the budget towards police. A nickname for this might be, “We Get, You Get.” The name refers to when the aggregate budget grows, then funding for the most critical service a city can provide—police—would grow. (Providing a sewer system is a close second for the most critical service).
Change the Charter for Police Budget?
Elected officials come and go, and with that so do certain priorities. It seems that with every budget cycle, certain departments have to prove their worth and their existence. But why should support seesaw when something is so important as the Social Contract? I recommend that the city should commit to a specific police budget each fiscal year. San Jose should allocate a fixed percentage of the budget to the police department that is higher than the 34.7% today of an $885.8 million general fund budget.
Juvenile Justice Cut Would be a Mistake
One of Governor Brown’s budget trigger cuts for California is the $72 million spent on the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ, formerly the California Youth Authority). The governor is proposing to shut down the state juvenile justice detention system and send the youth back to the counties for rehabilitation. On the surface, this seems like a good move—DJJ has a horrible reputation for punishing wards and providing little rehabilitative services.
DA Jeff Rosen Answers Readers’ Questions
This week, District Attorney Jeff Rosen answered 10 questions selected by SJI staff out of dozens submitted by San Jose Inside commenters. The topics range from how he handled the DeAnza sex case, his hiring of a Mercury News reporter and the timeline for several high-profile cases.—Editor
Tangled Webby
The San Jose Police Department’s ink-stained nemesis has gone native and joined the apparatus that puts people behind bars rather than hold the system accountable. That’s right, reporter Sean Webby is leaving the Mercury News to become a media coordinator for District Attorney Jeff Rosen.
Sinister Element Among Us
Last week I attended a disturbing meeting. Not a City Council meeting or a committee meeting but rather a meeting with law enforcement on child pornography. I did not know what to expect. The Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children (SVICAC) is responsible for investigating cases of web-facilitated child pornography and cases of child sexual exploitation or abuse that results from contact over the Internet. There is a small team that works in this capacity that presented at the meeting. A San Jose Police Department officer gave a very informative presentation, and the seriousness of the content was striking.
Scared Straight Programs Are All Talk
“Scared Straight”, the popular 1978 documentary by Arnold Shapiro, has been brought to television as “Beyond Scared Straight.” I avoided watching the new reality television series because all the research shows the scare tactics of taking kids to jail for a day does not work. I was hoping that after one season the show would die and just go away. Unfortunately, it is back for a new season.
Police Substation a Sign of the Times
Voters approved Measure O in 2002 to bolster public safety throughout San Jose, and the city started issuing $159 million in bonds. Much of the money was intended for constructing the south San Jose police substation on Great Oaks Boulevard. Nearly 10 years later, those ambitious days seem like a distant memory. The 107,000-square-foot facility—officially completed at the end of 2010 at a cost of $90.8 million—is currently one of five publicly funded buildings in the last 15 months that have yet to open or were closed the same day they were completed.
Scared Straight Tactics Don’t Work
Many juvenile offender services are not effective and some methods, like “shock incarceration treatment,” such as Scared Straight, actually worsen anti-social behavior. Unfortunately, with TV reality shows touting such interventions, communities continue to support these high-profile, ineffective programs. The thinking is: ‘We will just scare them into changing their ways.’ Only by looking at certain studies do we see that mixing youthful offenders with adult criminals, or with like-minded peers, only increases the chances that they will commit another crime.
POA President George Beattie Resigns
With many people rushing off for Thanksgiving last week, the Police Officers Association came out with a surprising announcement that George Beattie, the union president, was retiring from his POA position. Beattie, a lieutenant with the San Jose Police Department, has never been a fan of the media, so he didn’t give an interview in the Mercury News’ report. But his successor, Sgt. Jim Unland, who was previously vice president of the POA, was quoted as saying that negotiations with the city over pension reform are still proceeding “one day at a time.”
