With recent calls for more transparency in police departments across the nation, the Chula Vista Police Department is posting some of their data online for public view.
The Chula Vista Police Department becomes one of 53 agencies in the country to participate in the White House Police Data Initiative, an effort to increase community confidence in police departments by releasing data and records.
“We consider it a really important way to show the public that we are accountable to them, to our community, and that we don’t have anything to hide with regard to our operations,” said Chula Vista Police Capt. Vern Sallee.
The Chula Vista Police Department usually shares information with the public such as crime statistics, but some records are kept internally for record keeping and accountability, Sallee said.
Through the White House’s initiative, the police department will release data, statistics and records, with a web link on their website.
“It’s not secret data, but it’s not normally something that is proactively promulgated or shared with the public,” he said.
Some of that data may be of interest to the public and obtained through public records requests if appropriate, Sallee said.
The first three sets of information the agency will make public are officer demographics, the number of citizen complaints received and officer-involved shootings.
This information posted on line for the first time on June 1.
Sallee said White House staff would hold biweekly conference calls with the participating agencies to see what and how each agency is doing with the initiative.
Sallee said these three data sets are often times of interest to the public and of the most requested through the Public Records Act.
Defense Attorney Mary Frances Prevost, who represented a defendant who sued the Chula Vista Police Department for police brutality in 2009, said she questions the type of information that the department will release
“I’m not sure that I really trust them to put everything up (online) because you can still file a records request and demand more (details and information),” she said. “I think they are not going to put up anything that makes them look bad. They are going to put all these things that make them look like they are doing their job.”
Prevost was also concerned with the department possibly “cooking the books” to make themselves look good, as was the case she said when former San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne underreported crime statistics to make it look like crime was declining under his watch.
Sallee said information for officer involved shooting won’t have details of officers involved but will list information such as dates, number of officers involved and a case number.
While the information will be made public, Sallee said some may be withheld for a period of time.
“Things that are not confidential or part of an investigative record we are able to share,” he said.
Sallee said the department is not receiving additional funding from the White House to help participate in this initiative, so staff must actually collect data and keep it current and put it out on the website with the resources it already has, he said. .
Sallee said the posting of such information will help with the accountability of the department.
“(The department) is one of those areas where it may seem to be very secretive or an unresponsive type of entity, and it shouldn’t be that,” he said. “The police department is a community partner, we’re a city department like any other city department and we are accountable to the public and that is important for us to convey.
Sallee said the Chula Vista Police Department does what it can to build a positive relationship with the community.
Over the past 10 years, the department has established a community relations unit, an adult and juvenile police academies and offer events such as Coffee with a Cop.
