Quick Take
The fifth annual independent audit of the Santa Cruz Police Department noted successes in improving its internal investigation systems, but added that there is still room for improvement on the accountability side. Police leaders will review the recommendations and may bring them to the city's public safety committee for input on which to prioritize.
An independent police watchdog found that the Santa Cruz Police Department has made “commendable strides” in improving its internal investigations into officer misconduct, but still has room for improvement when it comes to accountability and tracking officer behavior.
The auditor, OIR Group, which also oversees the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, released its annual independent police auditor report, offering a number of recommendations to the department. Those include developing a comprehensive system for tracking an officer’s performance and creating a procedure manual for the investigation unit, prioritizing implementing software to improve accountability and transparency within the next year, and ensuring thorough investigations that reflect all circumstances of each case.
It is the fifth year that the OIR Group has investigated and evaluated reports of police misconduct at the Santa Cruz Police Department and produced a comprehensive assessment that largely zeroes in on the department’s internal administrative investigative process. The 10 recommendations that the firm offered are based on its evaluation of 20 internal investigations into allegations of misconduct that were closed during the 2024 calendar year.
SCPD Chief Bernie Escalante said the department is not required to implement any recommendations or policy changes as a result of the annual audit, but added that in the past, the department has done so. He said that of 73 recommendations that the firm has offered since 2020, the department has agreed with 90% of them. According to the report, 63 recommended policy changes or actions have been completed or implemented.
Escalante said that SCPD has not made an immediate decision on which recommendations from this year’s report to pursue, but added that the department’s management team will discuss the recommendations and could bring them to the next meeting of the city’s public safety committee so that it can weigh in on what the department should prioritize. The committee is a part of the Santa Cruz City Council, and is currently comprised of Councilmembers Sonja Brunner, Renee Golder and Susie O’Hara.
“There’s no set in stone timeline in the way we do it every year,” Escalante said. “Some of those things we could get to in the next couple of weeks, some of them we might get to 10 months from now.”
Escalante pointed to a few of the changes the department has made since 2020, when the OIR Group started the audits. One is a new policy that clarifies the public’s right to record officers performing their duties and guidelines for officers to follow when warning an individual that they are interfering with an officer’s duties. Another involved revising the department’s Taser policy, restricting use of the weapons to only when the subject is violent, or has threatened violence or physical resistance through words or actions, and appears to present harm to officers, themself, or others.
However, Escalante noted several past recommendations that he did not agree with. One was a recommendation that the SCPD express a preference for same-day interviews with officers involved in a critical incident.
“People don’t understand that if you have an officer involved in a shooting at 5 in the morning, the expectation is that we interview the officer before he or she goes home after working all night,” he said. Typically, the department would have to contact officer union representatives and have an attorney present, which isn’t always a quick process. “Even if we could do the interview at, say, 5 that afternoon, I don’t think it’s appropriate to make the officer go through that with zero rest after being up all night and all day.”
Another was a 2023 recommendation that SCPD remove language in a current policy that allows officers involved in a critical incident to view their body camera footage before providing a statement. But that disagreement is largely due to the fact that the policy is subject to an agreement with the police union.
“There are many different opinions across the profession around it, and I see it both ways,” Escalante said. “But it’s also much more complex than that, because there’s a union agreement that would have to be modified. It’s not as simple as just me making a change.”
The next public safety committee meeting is scheduled for June 25, which could see the committee consider which recommendations to prioritize in the coming year. Escalante added that “I don’t think there’s anything I take issue with” among this year’s recommendations.
While the auditor looked at 20 investigations, one high-profile incident was not included, as the internal investigation had not been closed by the end of last year. That incident involved allegations that SCPD officers used excessive force in apprehending a Black man on a bike in April 2024.
The man, Teran Whitley, who was 29 at the time, was stopped by officers near the intersection of Bay Street and West Cliff Drive for failing to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. He was arrested and charged with three misdemeanors: resisting arrest, possession of cannabis over 1 ounce and giving a false identification to police. Some bystanders took video of the incident and alleged that officers responded disproportionately in both numbers and force, prompting some of them to file community complaints with the department. The video showed several officers pinning the man to the ground along Bay Street.
The audit’s introduction says SCPD did launch a formal investigation into the case, which means that if the allegations were found to be true, employees involved could be subject to discipline. The firm wrote that it will review the case and report its findings in the next audit cycle.
In the days following the incident, Escalante said that initial review of the involved officers’ body camera footage did not show any clear violations of department policy or law. The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to Lookout’s inquiry about whether charges were ever filed against Whitley in court, but no court dates related to the incident appear in his court record.
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