Longtime officer says SDPD is plagued by culture of racism

S1: You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. A recent state transparency law is shining a light on cases of police misconduct handled within the departments themselves. But in the case of the San Diego Police Department , a new AI News source investigation finds that some instances of misconduct aren't being addressed at all for one black officer. That includes allegations against the Department of anti-Black Discrimination and Racism. AI New source reporter Jill Castellano joins us now. Jill , welcome back to the show.

S2: Thanks for having me on.

S1:

S2: And when he was 23 years old , he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and he joined the San Diego Police Department. That was many years ago , 28 years ago. He's in his 50 seconds now , and he's a black officer who's been on the force for nearly three decades. And he says during that time he has faced discrimination and racism and he's decided that it's time for him to come forward publicly.

S1: Well , tell us about some of the instances that led Officer Cochran to come forward.

S2: Well , I think what instigated his decision to come forward was one recent incident where Officer Cochran was walking into a meeting just before the meeting started. And the way that he describes it in his complaint is he walks in. There's another officer , a white man , who's already in the room and starts hassling him and saying , you know , you should have gotten here earlier. And they get into a dispute over this where Officer Cochran saying , you know , I outrank you. Why are you why are you talking to me this way ? And in the course of that conversation , Cochran says , hey , you're acting like you have some kind of privilege over me. What are you doing ? And the fellow officer says , Well , I do. I have my white privilege card. Now , a white man saying something like that to a black man. Unsurprisingly , John Cochran was extremely offended by that comment and decided to go ahead and report that incident as racist.

S1:

S2: I mean , from his ability to sleep at night to his ability to get paid. You know , he says that he has been passed up for promotions and that affects him financially. So it really affects him in every aspect of his life. And I think that's an important thing to remember. And here's a little bit more about what Cochran has to say about that.

S3: When I'm discriminated against , it affects everything. It affects my stress level. It affects my sleep level. It affects how I feel about myself , how I feel about other people. And it manifests out into the public.

S1: And I mean , we're talking about someone with three decades of experience on the force.

S2: He can go back and cite incidents from many , many years ago. But what's interesting is he says now there seems to be more of a public conversation about the need to address issues like this. And he says from his experience , he's not seeing a lot of progress being made. Unfortunately. He says that same discrimination and racism that's always been there is something that he's still experiencing and that the police department on an institutional level isn't serious about addressing.

S1: You mentioned that it could impact how officers interact with communities.

S2: We have research that supports this. We have research that shows that black people are stopped at higher rates than white people , searched at higher rates than white people. Even in the same neighborhoods. We have research that shows that San Diego police officers are more likely to use force against people of color than against white people. So this kind of issue of equity and how police interact with the public is a concern very locally here in San Diego and of course , also on a broader national level as well , with many killings of unarmed black men. And this broader reckoning we're having about racism and how black people and people of color are treated by police.

S1: You're right about this new state transparency law that recently went into effect and uncovers these cases of police misconduct , like what you've reported on here.

S2: So this new law , SB 16 , went into effect last year and we're just starting to see records released. You know , these are cases of sustained findings of misconduct. So cases where internal investigations in some. The police department confirm that misconduct occurred. So , of course , there could be many cases missing from these records where officers were exonerated. But we do have close to 100 cases that have now been released by the San Diego Police Department. I and colleagues at KPBS have gone through them , which is no small task. I mean , we're talking about hundreds of pages of case files for each and every single case. And in combing through them , we see cases of discrimination. We see cases of officer involved shootings or cases of excessive use of force , things like that , dishonesty. And when we narrow it down and specifically look at cases of employee discrimination , where employees are bringing allegations against other employees of discriminating against them , we were able to find 17 cases like that. And what we were able to figure out is that among those cases , six of them concluded there was racial discrimination that occurred. Half of them involved discrimination and derogatory behavior against women. And what's especially interesting , I think , is that the offenders in these cases were very much most often white male officers.

S1:

S2: So the officer that Cochran is accusing of making this white privilege card comment is named Officer Dustin Welch. He's a white man. And we see him appear in these records for something that is kind of similar to Cochran's case. This was a case back in 2018 when he was accused of ridiculing and making fun of a black officer who's also a muslim. And the investigators in this case found a couple of things that really stood out to me. For one , they said this officer has a tattoo that looks very similar to a white supremacist tattoo. And they said this officer , Dustin Welch , actually joked about it being a gang symbol in front of this black and Muslim officer. And that officer , you know , understandably found it very offensive. And I think another thing that can be highlighted in this case is just how deeply incidents like this can affect people. This officer , as I mentioned , is is Muslim. And he was so torn up about these experiences he faced with this white officer that he couldn't sleep at night and could not fast during Ramadan , the holy month for Muslims , and that it actually brought shame upon him in his mosque that he wasn't able to do so. So these cases have a real impact.

S1: And no disciplinary action was taken against Officer Dustin Walsh in this case.

S2: And in his mind , he does think that this behavior is tolerated. He thinks that management is not doing enough to hold officers accountable and that what happens if you have an officer who says something discriminatory or racist and then is not disciplined , that they basically , to some extent can become emboldened. They can come to the conclusion that perhaps it's okay to say these kinds of things. And according to Cochran , that's a really big problem , that when these incidents happened , they need to be taken more seriously.

S1: And you also write that two supervisors , one of them an internal affairs officer , were actually present at the time of an incident that Officer Cochran alleges one of those officers actually ended up interviewing Cochran about the incident.

S2: So there was another there was another officer who is a supervisor , a sergeant and a member of internal Affairs who was present when this comment was made about this white officer saying he had a white privilege card. And what's strange is that officer ended up being an officer who interviewed Cochran and took his information about his complaint. That's strange. Like during the course of the conversation that they had. And I've got this recording of this conversation , the two of them are actually arguing about what happened during that incident with the internal affairs officer , not just interviewing him , but saying , you know , that's not how I remember it. I remember things differently. And Cochran arguing back with him and saying , but don't you remember this and don't you remember that it was very unusual just from the cases that I've heard before. And ultimately , this officer , this internal affairs officer admits on the tape that , in fact , he did hear this comment about the white privilege card being made. So here's a little bit of that tape so you can hear for yourself.

S3:

S4: I heard him say something to the effect of , oh , you are not late. No , he said.

S3: He said , you're late again.

S4: I'm not here to argue with you. Okay ? I'm just.

S3: Telling you.

S4: Yes. Okay. Okay.

S1: Officer Cochran says that he feels retaliated against because of the complaints he's filed.

S2: For one , he says he has some disabilities , including carpal tunnel , and that he hasn't been accommodated for those disabilities because of the complaints he's filed. Most recently , he says he was passed up for an award that he deserved. There was an incident where he and other officer. Officers were on scene and somebody was hurting themselves and was at risk of taking their own life. And ultimately they were able to stop this situation from occurring and help this civilian out. Now , three other officers involved in that incident received an award for helping save this individual's life. Cochran , who was there , did not. So he feels like that was a result of retaliation. And also he was the only black officer who was present according to his telling. So , yeah , he says there were a lot of cases of retaliation he's faced and that that's ongoing.

S1: That in mind. Cochran says that despite there being others like him , officers within the department are generally unwilling to speak about this kind of behavior. Talk a bit more about that.

S2: Yeah , I think that's something we can probably all relate to. If you're dealing with issues in your workplace , it's not going to be easy for you to go out publicly and talk about them. You know , these are the people who issue you your paycheck. There's going to be some level of concern there. And , you know , police departments are hierarchical and there are these structures and these ranks to them. And only certain members of the police department are really supposed to be speaking with public like media relations teams. So Cochran isn't really authorized to come forward and speak , but he's doing so anyway. Now , I spoke with an expert who's an attorney who actually sues public safety , public safety departments , and on behalf of people who say they've been harassed and discriminated against. And she said , yeah , there's this huge , huge fear of retribution. And that comes from the fact that , you know , people have faced retribution in the past. And so that concern perpetuates over time.

S1:

S2: You know , these are ongoing investigations , so they don't want to say anything at this time. More broadly , they say they take cases of discrimination extremely seriously , that they are thoroughly reviewed , go through multiple layers of review. You know , from the cases that I've viewed online , you can see that there were thorough and detailed reports about these incidents. But specifically , they won't talk about what happened in Cochran's situations.

S1: I've been speaking with i news source reporter Jill Castellano. Jill , thank you very much for speaking with us.

S2: Thanks for having me.