In the wake of a federal finding that police in Ferguson, Missouri, engaged in a pattern of racial bias, a San Diego police lieutenant said Thursday the department employs ongoing strategies to fight actual and perceived bias in its law enforcement practices — an effort that is "never at an end state."
"We don't believe that there's an urgent problem (here)," SDPD public affairs Lt. Scott Wahl told City News Service. "It's just that (avoiding bias) is an ongoing part of our culture that we're always ... keeping in the forefront."
Wahl made his comments following the U.S. Department of Justice's conclusion this week that the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri has engaged in "a widespread pattern" of racial bias and constitutional violations, but that the fatal shooting of a black man there by a white officer "though a tragedy did not involve prosecutable conduct."
The San Diego Police Department is not completely free of race-related problems, as evidenced by a report SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman made last month to the city's Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee on data from traffic stops.
Related: New San Diego Police Data Shows Little Change In Rate Of Stops For Black, Hispanic Drivers
According to cards filled out in 2014 by officers about their stops, black motorists accounted for 11 percent of vehicle stops and 23 percent of searches, despite comprising only 5.5 percent of San Diego's population, Zimmerman told the panel. Hispanic drivers made up 30 percent of the stops and 40 percent of the searches, while comprising 27 percent of the population.
The comparable rates for whites and Asians were below their population shares.
The data showed that "the problem exists," according to Mark Jones, a black ex-Marine and leader of the Black Students Justice Coalition. Jones has pushed for changes in SDPD practices in the wake of fatal police shootings of unarmed black men such as the one in Ferguson.
The police have to change their culture from within and enforce existing policies, Jones told the council committee.
Police officials say officers collected the data early in the last decade but the practice diminished over time. The SDPD resumed the practice late in 2013.
Those findings demonstrate the need for police agencies to constantly monitor their dealings with minority groups and other subsets of the communities they serve, according to Wahl.
"Everybody has bias, and we provide training to our personnel that helps them understand bias and what our personal biases are, and make sure they do not become a part of how we police," he said.
Additionally, SDPD personnel attend an average of about 140 community hearings a month, sitting in on meetings of planning groups, town councils, neighborhood-watch organizations and religious congregations, Wahl said.
Officers attending such sessions are directed to be receptive to any complaints about racially motivated police misconduct. Also, the department actively searches out such problems in its ranks through the SDPD Professional Standards Unit, according to Wahl.
The need to identify and eliminate bias in the department is not a duty that will simply go away, the lieutenant said.
"It's never at an end state," he said. "It's always something that we're addressing and we're keeping an eye on."
