No time like present for police auditor

Published online on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009

Fresno can't hire an independent police auditor fast enough.

It has been nearly a year since Ashley Swearengin was elected mayor on a platform that included bringing civilian oversight to the Fresno Police Department.

First, she had to persuade the City Council to approve the idea of independently reviewing shootings by officers and citizen complaints.

Then, the city had to hire somebody. It still hasn't happened: The top candidate turned the job down.

Maybe the issue was money. Maybe, on reflection, the candidate decided the assignment was too challenging. Fresno is a tough, tough town.

The mayor Wednesday told me the city is very close to making a hire -- and she reiterated that "any officer-involved shooting automatically calls out for an independent review."

That's for sure. Fresno badly needs a credible and independent police observer at moments like this.

After two fatal shootings by officers on consecutive days, people -- despite a paucity of facts -- already are picking sides.

In anonymous comments made on fresnobee.com, some folks praise officers for keeping the city safe. But other people wonder whether police are trigger-happy.

There have been 10 police shootings this year, six of them fatal. This is a reversal of a trend that saw use of force by Fresno police drop 25% the previous five years while calls for service rose 14%.

Unfortunately, citizens haven't had a way to learn the facts -- let alone details -- of police shootings. Police control the information. Internal-affairs investigations are shrouded in mystery, their findings almost always kept secret.

The Fresno County district attorney rubber-stamps the Police Department's version of events and rarely bothers to even announce its conclusions. The only avenue people have had to learn the truth is filing a lawsuit.

The inevitable result: a loss of trust in Fresno police by some citizens.

The Fresno County Sheriff's Office says that Steven Anthony Vargas apparently was unarmed when he was shot by a Fresno police sergeant after Vargas crashed his sport utility vehicle into a van Tuesday. Another man -- said by police to be waving a replica of a semi-automatic handgun -- was killed by officers Wednesday in what Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer called a case of "suicide by cop."

Although the independent auditor won't have the power to conduct his own investigations of officer-involved shootings, he will be able to say what happened and offer an opinion on whether the use of deadly force was justified.

Some people expect perfect policing in an imperfect world -- an unreasonable expectation.

An officer's first responsibility is to himself, loved ones and fellow officers: return home safely. His second responsibility is to keep the city safe and, sometimes, that requires the use of deadly force, based on his perception of the situation.

But the public also deserves more than what it has been getting about situations that end in death. This isn't second-guessing. It's about transparency and building more community trust in law enforcement.