Sofia Laurel Pirri, Special to the Daily Press
The Santa Monica Police Department accepts responsibility for and is learning from its poor initial response to the May 31 events of last year according to a recent public appearance by Interim Chief of Police Jacqueline Seabrooks.
Seabrooks participated in a virtual community meeting this week that clarified and expanded on the department’s response to an official report detailing the failings of the City in response to last year’s protest and riot.
The OIR (Office of Independent Review) report specified 44 recommendations for the SMPD, principally focused on the areas of transparency, leadership, communication, operational and process issues, use of force, reviewing and updating policies, and training.
The SMPD’s 19 page response posited a plan for implementing the recommendations, focusing on leadership planning, use of force, and the mental wellbeing of SMPD officers. Of those 44 recommendations, 35 have already been implemented according to the report, and the vast majority of the rest are in progress.
Seabrooks explained that, despite taking issue with some of the methodology, the department accepts the OIR report on the whole and is working to address its recommendations.
“We want to convey to the community that we understand that our initial response in those early hours did not engender a level of confidence in this organization, and I want to assure you--as the interim chief, as your former chief, and as a person who spent the vast majority of my adult life in this city--that we’ve learned from that,” she said.
Seabrooks noted that it was important to share these lessons learned with the community in order to help restore confidence in the police department.
The OIR Report highlighted high turnover and lack of tenure in positions of leadership within the Department and Seabrooks said while SMPD typically experiences a slight increase in turnover with new leadership even those who are new to higher-level positions have still been working in the department for a significant amount of time.
“What I want to address is the misnomer that these people lack tenure,” said Seabrooks. “They all have been here upwards of 20 years. Now, they may have been new in their new role. And I think that bears noting, but at the end of the day, they are experienced members of the police organization across a variety of different police disciplines.”
However, the competence of leadership staff was undermined by an unusual decision made by the police chief at the time to send executive staff members out into the field, according to Seabrooks. The decision kept high-level officers occupied with problems in the field rather than letting them provide context and insight at the chief’s side.
“While it’s a very unusual decision, the two captains did what one would expect captains directed by the police chief to do, and that is to carry out a lawful order, even though flawed, in furtherance of community safety,” she Seabrooks.
SMPD has also improved operational planning, particularly in advance of potential crowd control situations. Seabrooks said that pre-incidental operational planning involves gathering intelligence, which can come in the form of a tip or even a social media post, vetting that knowledge, and turning it into a planned course of action.
“What we’ve done is we’ve tightened the intelligence function, and by tightening the intelligence function we’ve also strengthened pre-existing reporting processes and procedures,” she said. “It’s made us take a look at how far down in the organization we do this type of planning, how far down in the organization do we require our staff to be trained, are we consistently training on this particular issue.”
During the event, several high-ranking officers, including Sgt. Gerardo Leyva, President of the Santa Monica Police Officers Association, and Lt. Rudy Flores said they shared the community’s emotional reaction to the riot. They said as individual officers they struggled to process the scale of the emergency.
According to them, the chaos was largely created by an influx of “10-3 Code 3s,” a high urgency request for help that does not occur frequently in Santa Monica. The request indicates a need for assistance so dire that even the chief of police would typically rush to the scene.
“On that day, there were numerous 10-3 Code 3s, and many officers felt abandoned,” said. Leyva. “Nobody could respond to their 10-3 Code 3 because everybody that was out there was dealing with their own 10-3 Code 3. It was complete chaos with every officer that was out there. And so now, we’re finding that a lot of them are dealing with this trauma: they let someone down and then they were let down.”
Flores also remarked on the atmosphere of regret and disappointment among the department following the events of May 31, as well as the anxiety preceding them. He underlined the previous strength of the relationship between the Santa Monica community and the officers in the department.
“We are part of the community and the community is part of us. And we truly believe that. But last year was hard,” he said.
He went on to reference the department’s shock and horror at George Floyd’s murder.
“I remember we would talk in briefings or other meetings: ‘I cannot believe that happened. That would never happen here in Santa Monica,’” Flores said. “And then things changed. It didn’t feel like we were part of a community. We were painted with this broad brush. It was like: you, us. And then, of course, the civil unrest occurred here in our city and that definitely did not help.”
Flores said that most of the issues with the department’s handling of events stemmed from high-level decisions, that forced officers to keep playing catch-up. He commended officers for self-deploying and for rushing immediately to work in spite of these difficulties.
Now, with the added insight of the OIR report, the department has taken a closer look at these difficulties and begun working on improvements.
“I think the message today that I’d like to get out to our community,” said Seabrooks,” is one of reconciliation, one of healing, as we begin to move forward along our path away from the events of last year and into our future.”
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