The impending departure of the executive director of the San Diego Commission on Police Practices is yet another obstacle the oversight board will be forced to navigate this year as it works to gain more authority over the city’s police department and re-establish momentum it seemed to be gaining after years of stagnation.
In December, Executive Director Paul Parker submitted his resignation to the board just six months after taking the job. The resignation will take effect on Friday.
The commission will also need to find a new general counsel, with the current counsel having departed Tuesday.
Parker expressed frustration with the size of the commission — it has 25 members — as well as what he describes as a lack of clarity on the role of the executive director and slow progress on the board’s independent investigatory authority.
“Unfortunately, over the past few months,” Parker wrote in a letter to the board, “it has become increasingly clear that I am not the right person for this position at this time.”
At a meeting of the commission’s executive committee on Dec. 12, Parker said it could be years before the commission is able to launch an independent investigation into the department. The commission’s operating procedures still need to be approved and adopted by the City Council.
The commission is tasked with investigating some incidents of misconduct, police shootings and in-custody deaths. It currently relies mostly on internal department investigations to do so.
“It’s very sad,” he said.
Parker also noted that he felt he needed to “temper” his comments and that he “could be gotten rid of for no reason whatsoever.”
Commission Vice Chair Doug Case said that Parker’s departure was “unfortunate” but noted that it did not come as a complete surprise.
“The investigatory thing, that is (Parker’s) forte, and the reality is that it’s going to be a while before the operating procedures have been adopted by City Council,” Case said.
Parker had come to the commission from the San Diego County Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, which provides oversight of the Sheriff’s Office. While there, he helped expand CLERB’s ability to investigate in-custody deaths.
Parker’s departure will likely delay the adoption of the operating procedures even longer. Case said the commission had hoped to submit the proposed procedures to the council’s public safety committee sometime in January.
That is unlikely to happen.
Now, the commission will have to find an interim executive director, as well as begin the search for a permanent replacement and new counsel after the departure of Duane Bennett.
“It’s challenging to have to restart the process,” Case said. “But we respect Paul’s decision, and we respect his work.”
The commission had struggled to gain critical mass after it was approved by the council four years ago. It had difficulty seating volunteer commissioners, hampering its oversight efforts of the Police Department and causing a backlog of more than 100 cases to go unaddressed.
Since then, however, with the roster of commissioners mostly filled out, the commission had begun to make progress on major issues.
The commission had recently submitted a set of recommendations to the department regarding changes to its pursuit policies. Parker’s departure is unlikely to impact the day-to-day work, Case said.
In the coming year, the commission is poised to address pretext stops and protest policies.
Case also said there is some optimism regarding the search for a new executive director and that a qualified candidate may be identified quickly.
The process for identifying candidates is already developed and could be fast-tracked, Case noted.
And a good applicant pool for the open deputy director position already exists, Case said. Some of those applicants could be considered for the executive director role.
Case said city staff had indicated that the search process could be completed by the spring, although he noted that “is not a guarantee.”
“I think the City Council understands the necessity of having that position filled as soon as possible,” Case said. “And so I’m optimistic.”
