Good to see that at least our Mayor is being supportive of us in this media made issue. Hopefully our own administration can be more vocal in doing the same.

Agreed

Haven't heard much from your new SJPOA President. Bobby would have been on this like white on rice.

Today's daily bashing in the Mercury has to do with the city wanting to take positions filled on our retirement board with police officers and firemen and instead giving these seats to "outside financial experts"....yeah right.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14345328

Merc's double standard

Why was the story about Coto and Fong making an audit request played big?

Wasn't it on the front page?

But this really strong response from Reed gets no mention or coverage?

Is this a double standard?

Is this good journalism?

Good questions.

I agree again

The Merc could care less about the truth. This letter should be on the front page of the paper and TV news.

Look at how they are treating the Sheriff and DA candidates in the news. They only report good things about Rosen and Smith who they endorse. The rest of the candidates can jump off a bridge. The same with the people running for council or mayor.

I hope you guys are going to cover candidates for election. We need honest reports on these people.

While it's nice to see the support for SJPD (finally), the mayor should try responding to all the foolsih, biased reporting that's been printed for the last several years in the Merc. I'm less concerned with him defending us to some state assembly members as I am to the taxpayers that we serve on a daily basis. The statistics will shut down any "inquiry" that comes along, any day of the week.

Get it together Mr. Reed. Step up and do the right thing for once and prove that you actually support law enforcement in San Jose.

Mayor's Letter

I'm glad to see our Mayor stepping up to the plate and defending our PD sort of. Now he needs to go one step further and start holding people who break the law and use the IPA's Office, and use of force, as a legal defense to their criminal behaviors accountable for their actions!

I personally feel that an investigation into the abuse of complaint filing by criminals with the IPA's Office needs to be done. The credibility of people filing complaints needs to be addressed. If they have long criminal records, file multiple complaints, and are as I suspect, using this office as a "get out of jail free card," or to reduce their sentence, then we need to correct that ASAP! I also think the mental status of the person filing a complaint needs to be documented as well. While a mentally challenged person may have a justifiable complaint against an officer, some may not, so the credibility of the complainant needs to verified just like any court tests the credibility of witnesses.

I just spoke with Vice Mayor Chirco's Office. They verified that the FINAL community input meeting on the IPA issue IS as follows:

Thursday, February 25, 2010

6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Roosevelt Community Center

901 E Santa Clara St., San Jose, CA 95116

PLEASE come, bring a friend, and pass it on to everyone you know! If you can not come WRITE your Council Member and Mayor and give them your input, or hold your own community meeting, and give the Mayor and Council your group's input! Thanks!

This is a good START...

This is a good start for the Mayor, but it is only a start. This issue has blown up the way it has because there has not been a BALANCE of viewpoints solicited on the issues surrounding the SJPD and the IPA. Only one viewpoint - one that is critical of the SJPD and of the IPA - has been represented.

This letter is a good start for Mayor Reed, but he needs to address the false stats the Merc has printed and use Ed Rast's columns to combat this misinformation. The Mayor and Council need to solicit a balanced set of opinions on these issues - victim's rights advocates, MADD, and other groups need to be heard as well. They also need to sit on IPAC and the community panel on the hiring of the new IPA.

Too little, Too late to correst false accusations

Thank you Mayor Reed for your letter of support. We understand that you have started your reelection campaign so need to be careful about what you say so as not to give any opponent or Mercury words that can be twisted and uses against you.

Your City Manager and a few Council members have made it more difficult to resolve the public safety concerns.

City Manager neglected for 2 years to check truthfulness of many false accusations by Merky, DeBug, NAACP, Asian Law Alliance ACLU against Police Department and individual police officers which used unfortunate legal incidents, false or biased use of arrest data to advance their political agendas.

A few Council members assumed the police were wrong since city staff was silent and issued an accusatory political Council memo pandering to false accusers.

The accusers, City Manager, and a few Council members politically and effectively convicted the Police Department and individual officers in the public eye since nothing was said by city to publicly correct or refute false accusations.

Police officers as any city employee should be able to rely upon the city as their employer to defend them against false accusations which did not happen causing a large decline in police morale.

Many in San Jose, Legislature, California and nationally now believe the false accusations are`true. Any future report saying the accusations were false will be discounted as late, politically covering up wrong doing, and will not get the widespread 2 year coverage in tv, radio, internet and many newspaper reports of 2 years of false accusations

City Manager and few Council members should be ashamed of themselves for not doing their requiring job of checking truth of any accusations and have caused years of harm to San Jose, Police Chief, Police Department and individual officers reputations.

They owe them a public apology. City Attorney should look at what can be done to false accusers.

Well said Jospeh!

""San Jose police support diversity

Wiggsy Sivertsen's theory (Letters, Feb. 5) that San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis promoted Phan Ngo as a cultural gesture reeks of tokenism. Chief Davis promoted one of the best-qualified captains who happens to be Vietnamese. His promotion should benefit the whole community, not one segment. Her statement regarding barriers between the community and our culturally diverse department are easily arguable.

The San Jose Police Department has provided mandatory cultural diversity training for more than 30 years. Sivertsen facilitated training on the sensitive treatment of gays and lesbians years ago, yet fails to recognize the continued effort the department makes to understand cultural differences. Sivertsen should direct her comments to those who maintain the barriers and thwart progress: the NAACP, the Asian Law Alliance, Silicon Valley De-Bug and the Mercury News.

Joseph Wicker

Retired member of San Jose Police Department San Jose"


http://www.mercurynews.com/letters/ci_14344737

Wiggsy's Letter

"Police appointment doesn't end issues

I would like to express congratulations to Capt. Phan Ngo for his promotion to deputy chief at the San Jose Police Department. However, symbolic gestures do not translate into cultural sensitivity and awareness. So if it was Chief Rob Davis' hope that Ngo's appointment would calm the anxieties and anger in the Vietnamese community, he will be disappointed.

Ngo and many other police officers at the department reflect the diversity of our community and yet there still exists numerous barriers between the police and our culturally diverse citizens. I hope Ngo will use his cultural knowledge to help the department become more sensitive and informed about the concerns of the Vietnamese community. However, up to this point he has been a silent voice in addressing the needs of his community.

Wiggsy Sivertsen

San Jose"

http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_14335539?IADID=Search-www.mercury news.com-www.mercurynews.com

Too Little, Too Late

While it's nice to see the Mayor take a stand against this Coto and Fong, it would have been nice to see the Mayor take a stand against all of the unfounded attacks leveled against SJPD by those organizations mentioned above. Further, I am afraid it may be too late and the damage has been done. Practices and enforcement has changed - both officially and unofficially. And what is the result: I have had various friends and acquaintances as well as random citizens tell me how much less safe they now feel downtown. In fact, I have one friend who pointedly informed me that, where once she felt safe walking around downtown (where she lives)in the evenings and late at night, she now no longer does. She added that she is bothered by the learing, provocative and explicit comments and the generally thuggish behavior, and that she doesn't prefer to spend much time downtown anymore. I wonder how many others feel similarly.

A Dose of Reality and Tokenism

It is refreshing for the mayor to provide solid evidence that when it is politically expedient for him to do so, he will provide at least lip service in support of SJPD. Let us hope that someone from the POA saves the mayor’s letter and brings it with them to the bargaining table when next the mayor and the city negotiate with the cops for wages and benefits. Traditionally the mayor’s support tends to pale at those times.

On May 18, 2007, while patrolling downtown San Jose, in an area notorious for its high level of drug activity, a patrol officer, a sergeant in fact, contacted a drug dealer. (SJPD case #07-138-0615). The drug dealer wasn’t happy with the “customer service” he received; he said so; and was then given directions, by that same sergeant, to the Internal Affairs Unit and told how to make a complaint. The felon did so immediately. The sergeant continued investigating; (legally) found further evidence of drug dealing and contacted the Internal Affairs Unit and the suspect’s parole agent. The parole agent requested that the suspect be booked into jail on a parole violation, notwithstanding that the sergeant had solid probable cause for an on-view felony arrest as well.

After calling the Internal Affairs Unit and confirming that the suspect was still there, the sergeant and other officers waited downstairs for the suspect to finish making his complaint, and leave. However, the commander of the Internal Affairs Unit at the time, current deputy chief Phan Ngo, after skillfully ensuring that blame would be spread so as to insulate himself, ordered that the drug dealing felon parolee NOT BE ARRESTED because Ngo apparently felt that it might inhibit future felons from making complaints against officers. Phan Ngo ensured then that a drug dealing felon on parole, one with a long history of drug trafficking, parole violations and who had just been released from prison only 2 days earlier, was released back into the community, despite the request of his parole agent and regardless of his having just committed another felony! (Look it up; SJPD case #07-138-0615).

Mr. Mayor, Mr. State Politician, the SJPD not only polices itself but with deputy chiefs like PHAN NGO, the SJPD places the citizen complaint process ahead of felony crimes!

I hate to agree with Wiggsy (and she would probably hate that I did) but she is right. Chief Davis’s promotion of Phan Ngo was not only a mere “symbolic gesture” that “doesn’t end issues”, Ngo’s promotion was an insult to every competent Vietnamese officer on the department, as well as all other officers who strive for promotion on merit rather than by token gesture. Phan Ngo is not only out of touch with and an embarrassment to his own community, he knows nothing about the law enforcement community either!

SJPD doesn’t need more oversight. The SJPD is so willing to entertain and placate police complainants that officers are ordered by supercilious command officers like Phan Ngo to ignore felony crimes to do it!

The decline of San Jose Police Department has been in full force for over ten years. It started with Chief Lansdowne who accomodated every special intrests demand for transparency (NAACP for disposition codes for traffic stops).

When Chief Lansdowne left for San Diego in 2003, Chief Davis immediately took over as chief of appeasement. The chief accommodated the muslim community during Ramadan by fasting and mandating department wide racial profiling training. He placated the hispanic community by having officers PAS (preliminary alcohol screening)test drunk in publics. Per the California Penal Code the PAS test is not required for drunk in public offenses. With the latest police shooting death of a mentally ill vietnamese man the chief accommodates that community with a promotion.

These are mixed messages sent by both chiefs during their tenure. Is this their way of apologizing to the community? Who really runs the San Jose police department? Is it the chief of police or community activists?

Kudos Mr Mayor for standing up for the men and women of the San Jose Police Department.