Fresno leaders quietly begin work on two dozen police reforms. Here’s what they are
Work will begin next week to enact two dozen of the 70-plus recommendations made by the Fresno Commission for Police Reform.
While city officials internally discussed which recommendations to enact starting in March, most of the commission members and the public were left in the dark. The commission’s work was public and included robust community outreach, but city leaders made no public announcement about which recommendations would come to fruition or how residents could be involved.
The Bee learned which recommendations will move forward by obtaining an internal memo from Mayor Jerry Dyer and his team to the Fresno City Council. City staff requested The Bee submit a public record request for the memo.
Sandra Celedon, vice chair of the Commission for Police Reform who also will serve on the Implementation Team, said that while she’s proud of the commission’s work, implementation isn’t going as well.
“Unfortunately, the implementation of these recommendations isn’t going nearly as well, as most of this work is now being done behind closed doors by a few city of Fresno leaders and with limited input from me or my fellow commissioners,” she said. “The city is tainting the process and spoiling the good work that the commission completed.
“By co-opting this process and conducting it without community inclusion, the city is just displaying why there is so much inherent distrust of police in our community,” Celedon said.
The Commission for Police Reform in October adopted its report, which included 73 recommendations. The commission was formed in response to Fresno’s largest protest after a white Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, a Black man, sparking a nationwide racial reckoning. The former officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder this week. During Fresno’s protest, Black and brown community members shared their experiences with Fresno police and demanded change.
The memo
Dyer and his team sent the implementation memo to the City Council March 1. A Police Reform Implementation Team will meet for the first time next week to begin work. Those meetings will be public and streamed via Zoom, and Dyer will solicit feedback from residents during monthly town hall meetings he’s conducting in each council district, according to City Manager Thomas Esqueda.
In addition to the 24 recommendations, the memo said 31 other recommendations will be tackled by the Implementation Team. Seven more require developing long-term strategies to address underlying issues at the root of the recommendation, the memo said.
Oliver Baines, the chair of the commission and Implementation Team, said he’s pleased to see city officials moving forward and acting on the recommendations.
“I’m glad,” he said. “I always believed there were a number of recommendations that didn’t require the full-on committee to work on. Many were ministerial in nature.”
Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama said many of the recommendations moving forward were “low-hanging fruit.”
“I and the city do not want to just sit on these and wait too long,” he said. “I think we need to keep the progress moving forward.”
He’s particularly eager to make changes to how officers deal with mental health calls.
“I am a believer that in a lot of these situations, a police officer may not be the best professional to deal with some of these calls, especially if there’s no crime or no violence,” he said.
The memo noted that the recommendations are intended to provide the police department with tools and resources to create more transparency and accountability and to improve community trust.
The recommendations that are moving forward first were reviewed with the following considerations: statutory and regulatory factors; whether the recommendation would require more resources for the Fresno Police Department; whether the recommendation would require a meet-and-confer session with the Fresno Police Officers Association; and the organizational and operational logistics required to move forward with the recommendation.
The memo also said the city manager will prioritize the work to enact the 24 recommendations within the next 90 days. Balderrama said he’s confident that timeline will be met.
“Rest assured, we are committed to the schedule, but we are prepared to make allowances in the schedule if the final result is a better product for the residents of Fresno,” Esqueda said.
“The Fresno Police Department is the largest department in the city, and it covers all four corners of the city — 110 square miles,” Esqueda said. “Because it is such an integrated department — an ecosystem — the sequence and timing of implementing changes will be critical. Everything is connected, so there will need to be a lot of analysis and discussion about how to sequence and time the changes so that we don’t impact our service delivery. All things are possible, just not at the same time.”
The recommendations
The following recommendations are the ones city officials are working to enact:
Recommendation #8: American Ambulance, Fresno’s paramedics provider, has developed a concept that is consistent with the foregoing recommendation to rely on medical and mental health professionals to respond to mental health calls in lieu of a law enforcement response. The city should work with Fresno County Behavioral Health to certify specially trained paramedics to write Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 holds on people that meet applicable criteria.
Recommendation #11: The preamble to the use-of-force policy should state that its purpose is to prevent unnecessary force, ensure accountability and transparency, and ensure the community’s trust and confidence in the Fresno Police Department’s ability to protect and serve. It shall be the utmost priority and mission of the FPD to protect and serve all individuals of Fresno and to respect the inherent life, liberty, dignity, and worth of all individuals by preserving human life, minimizing physical harm and reliance on use of force, and conducting its duties without prejudice. The FPD Policy Manual, in particular 300 Use of Force, and other force provisions and related training, should be updated to reflect these concepts.
Recommendation #12: Law enforcement officers of the FPD shall only use physical force when no other viable option is available. In all cases where force is used, only the minimum degree of force which is necessary shall be employed. The minimum degree of force is the lowest level of force within a range of what is objectively necessary or reasonable to effect an arrest or achieve a lawful objective. To further the aim of minimal reliance on force, all law enforcement officers must, at all times, carry on their person at least one less-lethal weapon.
Recommendation #13: The Use of Force Policy 300 should be modified to require the use of de-escalation techniques, as specified in SB 230.
Recommendation #14: The use of force policy should state that deadly force may be used only for the protection of human life.
Recommendation #15: The level of resistance faced by the officer, and the extent to which it is treated, should be weighed in determining the application of the use of force. With respect to the conduct of the subject, the use of force should also be based on whether the subject is: compliant; passively resistant; actively resistant; or assaultive, aggressive, or combative.
Recommendation #16: The FPD Police Policy Manual should be amended to provide that an officer’s use of deadly force will be assessed in light of the officer’s tactical conduct and decisions leading up to the use of force. Where possible, a verbal warning or verbal warnings shall be given before the use of deadly force.
Recommendation #17: The existing use of force section regarding moving vehicles, section 300.8.4, does not prohibit officers from reaching into moving vehicles. The commission recommends that the provision be revised to include this prohibition. Reaching into a moving vehicle invites a situation in which the officer’s life is endangered, and therefore, the use of force may be required.
Recommendation #19: The department should improve its early intervention system (EAS) patterns of behavior by individual officers that suggest the need for intervention or additional training.
Recommendation #20: All corrective action should be documented in an employee’s personnel file.
Recommendation #21: The city should clarify and provide for a robust process by which members of the public can make complaints of discrimination against police officers.
Recommendation #22: The city’s workplace discrimination policy should be amended to provide victims of discrimination the same protections that witnesses are afforded.
Recommendation #24: Investigations should be completed within six months unless the incident is of a complex or difficult nature that would require additional time to be investigated.
Recommendation #26: Policies regarding the investigation of discrimination and harassment complaints should be updated to emphasize the need to complete such investigations in a timely manner. The use of outside investigators should be considered where there is a reasonable concern regarding impartiality or conflict.
Recommendation #28: Fresno patrol officers should not: Respond to low-risk non-criminal calls; Respond to victims of property-related crimes where the crime occurred more than 24 hours before the call; or respond to routine calls (i.e., non-violent) to homeless encampments or involving unhoused individuals.
Recommendation #30: If there are conditions or requirements at the FPD that tend to deter female applications or discriminate against females, they should be remedied.
Recommendation #31: The city should continue to work with California State University, Fresno, Fresno City College, and other local educational institutions to expand the appeal of policing with the department as a career path.
Recommendation #41: The city and the FPD should evaluate the overall effectiveness of its current workers’ compensation and wellness programs to increase the number of available work hours and reduce the costs in workers’ compensation related expenses.
Recommendation #46: The city of Fresno should transfer the following functions and associated budgets to other city departments whose core missions are better aligned with the intended functions and outcomes: Fresno Area Express (FAX) unit; graffiti unit; Violence Intervention and Community Services; Homeless Task Force; and Recycling Task Force.
Recommendation #56: Disband the Homeless Task Force and reallocate resources to social services and community-based organizations that provide services to the city’s homeless population.
Recommendation #70: The Commission recommends the city implement juvenile diversion strategies as follows: The city should contract with the Community Justice Center (CJC) to provide additional restorative justice services for low-level juvenile offenders to resolve the criminal behavior using trained mediators and mentors “pre-arrest” without referral to juvenile court; the department should work collaboratively with CJC to divert juvenile offenders into the restorative justice programs and to participate in the intervention sessions for those impacted by harm; the success of the CJC Program should be evaluated as an evidence-based practice utilizing comparative recidivism and re-offense rates as one matrix of success; and CJC should be expanded to other high school campuses and support additionally trained mentors from grassroots organizations that are culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive, to conduct a minimum of 250 CJC Restorative Justice interventions per year.
Recommendation #72: The Commission recommends the city support community -based violence prevention and the sustainability of Advance Peace through multi year funding. The city’s efforts should include the following objectives: Reducing gun violence by 50%; building Advance Peace Fellows to lead community-based violence prevention; and begin multi-year support at the end of the current grant cycle in September 2023.
Recommendation #73: The city should partner with other agencies to develop and implement more effective process for allocating resources needed to address homelessness in Fresno to provide additional resources, such as more social workers, rather than expecting the FPO to address an issue that they are not trained or equipped to manage.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 12:44 PM.