SAN DIEGO (AP) — Federal
officials are conducting two separate probes into the San Diego Police
Department that has been besieged by more than a dozen cases of officer
misconduct, ranging from drunken driving to rape, city and federal officials
announced Monday.
The FBI and the U.S. attorney's
office will be doing a criminal investigation into specific cases, while the
Department of Justice will be reviewing about 15 cases of misconduct documented
over a three-year period to determine the cause of the problem plaguing the
police force in one of the nation's safest cities.
"We believe every rock
should be turned over," City Attorney Jan Goldsmith told reporters at a
joint news conference held by city and federal officials at the U.S. attorney's
office in San Diego. "If crimes were committed in addition to those
already prosecuted, perpetrators should be brought to justice."
Among the most prominent cases
has been the conviction of Officer Anthony Arevalos in 2011 for eliciting
sexual favors from women he stopped on traffic violations. He was sentenced to
eight years in prison, but a judge last month overturned two of those charges,
including sexual battery, and Arevalos will be resentenced. The city has spent
$2.3 million to settle 12 of 13 claims tied to the case, Goldsmith said.
Another officer resigned last
month after being charged with sexually assaulting four women in his patrol
car, and another was under internal investigation after allegations he had
touched and exposed himself to women he arrested.
Mayor Kevin Faulconer
emphasized that federal officials opened both investigations at the request of
the city, which is just emerging from an unrelated sexual misconduct scandal
that cut short the term of former Mayor Bob Filner. Faulconer took office
earlier this month after a special election that followed Filner's resignation.
Faulconer immediately called
for a full investigation and appointed the city's first female police chief
after Chief William Landsdowne retired last month, ending 11 years at the helm.
Lansdowne had said he was seeking an outside audit of department policies,
training and discipline before announcing his retirement.
He also began requiring that
all women in custody be accompanied by at least two officers.
Chief Shelley Zimmerman went
one step further and began testing the wearing of on-body cameras by officers
on the job.
Federal officials will be
combing through the department's internal investigations into officer
misconduct. The six-to-eight month probe will look at officer conduct on and
off the job and could be expanded, said Ron Davis, director of The Justice
Department's office of Community Oriented Policing Services, adding that it
will be independent, fair and thorough.
The federal government is paying
for the assessment, which could cost as much as a quarter-million dollars,
Davis said. The city will provide periodic updates on the findings and proposed
reforms.
Zimmerman said the force's
morale has been boosted because officers know the city is doing everything
possible to weed out bad personnel.
"Our entire department
feels terrible about this misconduct. We believe that those few officers have
betrayed our badge, discredited, dishonored our noble profession. And our
officers welcome this," Zimmerman said, adding: "All of us want to
know what we can do to prevent hiring somebody that is going to make the
terrible decision to discredit our badge."