What's Wrong with the SF Police Department?

by Ted Tarver, 2007-01-29

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ted Tarver is a former SFPD officer who in November won a $1.1 million judgment against the Police Department for disability discrimination, after they refused to re-hire him after an on-the-job injury.

While Gavin Newsom has accomplished a great deal during his term as mayor, he has failed in one critical area. He has failed to understand that the continued underlying problems within the San Francisco Police Department were caused by his failure to appoint an outside Chief of Police and Command Staff to bring reform to a troubled agency.

The San Francisco Police Department does not need an administrator; it needs someone who has the proven capability to command a police department, someone with demonstrated leadership skills, unquestioned by the rank and file.

The City of Richmond's appointment of Chief of Police is a great example of "Thinking outside the box". While some questioned the appointment of a Chief of Police from Fargo, North Dakota to the City of Richmond, with its high rate of homicide, it has proven most effective. Chief Magnus was able to make critical command decisions that revamped the department using the resources he had at hand to have his officers reconnect with the citizens they serve, and now results are being shown by citizen feedback of being able to communicate with their officers. Even with the complaints leveled against him, I am impressed by his sterling reputation; I believe his character and background will prevail against complaints of his restructuring of his department.

As a former SFPD officer who spent a month in trial, it still shocks me that more than a million dollars of taxpayer money was awarded in my case. This award came because we have a Chief of Police that cannot make a critical command decisions, who cannot adequately assess risk management, and instead relies on the "business as usual" management plan with command staff who testified they have neither education nor background related to their appointed positions.

To keep me from returning to work after I needed to recover from a severe on-the-job injury that at one point had me in an intensive care unit, the cost of two new academy classes will be spent on attorney's fees and myself. Even worse is the fact that the SFPD has now been left with a Pandora's box of future litigation since it is evident that the current management of the SFPD simply does not understand that the rules you apply to one must be equally applied to all.

I easily proved in court that no police officer has to be able to "stand for ten hours straight at parade rest without moving a muscle" as an essential function of the job. Now the SFPD administration claims it requires every Police Officer to perform a fireman's carry from a burning building as an essential function of the job without any testing or training standard whatsoever. The SFPD's own experts documented 10% or approximately 150 officers are incapable of performing such a task. Now comes the challenge to make sure every officer is capable of such a task in order to avoid further litigation.

A key issue in the 2007 election for Mayor of San Francisco will undoubtedly be reform of the San Francisco Police Department. Every time you read a newspaper or listen to the news about the San Francisco Police Department, it is a continuous embarrassment for so many hard working San Francisco Police Officers who truly have a desire to competently serve and protect the public. The San Francisco Police Department simply needs strong leadership.

For Newsom to truly demonstrate a desire to reform the SFPD, it can only be done by bringing in an outside Chief of Police and Command Staff who truly has the ability to reform a troubled department with state of the art management practices. Simply trying to heap blame on others for management decisions made by the Chief of Police is fruitless.

A consistent "passing of the buck" as was done in the fiasco of the delay in bringing in a new academy class due to the managements inability to properly budget and then blaming Supervisor Chris Daly. Newsom has to accept his responsibility to the citizens of San Francisco to appoint an outside Chief of Police and upper Command Staff to reform the SFPD.

In the middle of my trial, a threat was relayed that I could be prosecuted for the release of an alleged confidential document that I had authored in the matter of John Tennison, an individual who had a decade plus of his life taken away before he was found innocent of a murder he did not commit. Though I had went out in the streets and arrested him on instructions from the department, I have a duty with ethical and moral responsibility as a peace officer to truthfully provide any evidence that may aid any citizen in their pursuit of justice.

I simply do not respond well to threats or intimidation and I am not intimidated by such threat of prosecution. My response is "bring it on". I pride myself on the fact that whenever I give testimony, I always have the self-respect to be able to look a person in the eye since good or bad, I tell the truth. So when I am asked questions during a lawful inquiry, I have one simple rule, tell the truth - a rule that the San Francisco Police management should learn to use.