November 11, 2004

Police chief reflects on first year in office

Rob Davis cites community outreach, domestic violence and
Internet crimes against children as top concerns

Editor’s Note: The following is the 15th article in an ongoing series about the city’s departments and appointed officials. Next: Public Works Department Director Katy Allen.

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

When Robert Davis was in the sixth grade, he read about a child his same age in England who formed a law-enforcement club to serve his community, catch the bad guys and prevent crime.

San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis entered the force in 1980. He fell in love with his job and abandoned dreams of becoming a lawyer. Photo by Sheila Sanchez

The southern Idaho boy imitated what he had learned, starting his own police club holding one meeting with an officer and club members to help solve small-town problems.

When Davis moved with his parents and eight siblings to Colorado, the club dissolved. It was the first time the young Davis considered the possibility of a career in law enforcement.

He also watched popular police television shows of the time, such as “Dragnet” and “Adam-12.” “I thought, ‘Would I want to be a policeman?’” said Davis, dressed in street clothes, from behind the desk of the top cop in San Jose at 201 West Mission St., in downtown.

By the time Davis reached junior high and high school, he had forgotten about his pre-adolescent dream.
The self-described native Californian born in Idaho, moved to San Jose when he was 12 years old. He studied at local schools and graduated from Branham High School.

He attended Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University for a year and then served a two-year proselytizing mission in Argentina for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where he learned to speak Spanish fluently.

After his mission, he returned to BYU where snowy winters drove him crazy. A friend who had joined the SJPD was trying to convince the 22-year-old Davis to join the force so he could take advantage of the 40 hours of extra vacation given to officers who got bilingual friends recruited.

Davis’ goal was to go to law school. He thought if he became a police officer he could save money to make his dream a reality. In 1980, he traded his old missionary name tag for the department’s shiny seven-point star badge representing seven core values he had been taught in his youth: truth, justice, fortitude, temperance, prudence, tolerance and brotherhood.

“I joined the police department as a total fluke,” he said.

He earned a bachelor of arts’ degree in English from San Jose State University in 1985. Four years into his career as a police officer, Davis had to decide whether to quit his job as a cop or pursue his original goal to attend law school.

The realization came that everything he thought he might accomplish as an attorney he could do a “hundred times more as a law enforcement officer.”

He explains: “As a cop, you have the ability on a daily basis to have direct, immediate impact on people’s lives. It’s tangible, palpable and it’s not postponed. You see immediate results of what you’ve done.”

Davis also decided to stay with the SJPD because of the strong relationship he had formed with his fellow officers whom he considered brothers. “I had no idea who police officers were before I joined the force. I had that stereotype in my mind of a guy wearing sunglasses, giving out traffic tickets. I didn’t realize the caliber of individual who becomes a police officer in San Jose. I would have to be crazy to leave this place,” he said. “I love working with the people here and I love working with the people in the community.”

Davis moved up the ranks quickly. He also received his master’s degree in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Becoming chief
When former San Jose Police Chief William M. Lansdowne announced he would become San Diego’s next chief, Davis applied for the position. He waited, however, until then-Assistant Police Chief Tom Whitley decided what to do with the job as he faced an illness.

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and the City Council appointed him the new chief in January. His first year in the department has required him to address budget problems brought on by an $85 million city budget deficit.

The 47-year-old Davis who is married and has one daughter has lived in Almaden since 1996.

“If you’re going to be a police chief in a major city, this is definitely the place to be.”

In his quest to continue to protect “America’s safest large city,” he’s strengthened by a positive attitude using what many perceive as the stresses of the job to relax.

“You see people at their worst and you see people at their best. It helps to balance it. I can honestly say there has not been one single day when I have not been glad to show up for work. It’s a great job. I don’t think a lot of people can say that. I really enjoy this job.”

On average, Davis works between 72 and 75 hours a week. Weekends are filled with community meetings to strengthen relationships with the city’s many communities. He starts his workdays usually between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m., rising out of bed usually at 4:30 a.m., and clocking out around 7:30 p.m., getting home at around 8:30 p.m., putting in exhausting 12-13-hour days. He reads the newspaper every day.

To further relieve the stress of the job, Davis, who’s always been physically active and has participated in several triathlons, swims in his 20-yard lap pool at home as much as possible. Since becoming chief in January, he admits he’s not getting as much exercise as he should.

“If all you do is sit in the office and push the paper and deal with the headaches, you miss being able to see the impact of what you’re doing. Community meetings are stress relieving. They remind me why I’m a police chief.”
He believes law enforcement should be about prevention, intervention and suppression to drive down the crime rate.

“If we only focus on the enforcement or arresting part, we’re not going to be as effective as we could, otherwise.

We have to be out there in the community proactively working and collaborating with everyone.

The only way to be successful at all three is by working with the community.”

He credits this kind of approach with San Jose being recognized as the safest big city in America. “It’s a lot of hard work on the part of the police department but it’s also a lot of hard work on the part of the community, which has had the courage to step forward, take responsibility and impact these issues. It’s a team effort,” Davis said.

A devout Mormon, he’s being praised for being culturally sensitive to other faiths.

He said he remembers the good old Mormon values instilled in him while growing up in the church to do the right thing. “I realize I have to be a role model and that I have the responsibility to protect those who can’t protect themselves. If we know who we are and what our purpose in life is, it allows us to immerse ourselves in trying to help others. Clearly one of the basic teachings in my faith is that when you serve others you’re only in the service of God.”

A strong supporter of the separation of church and state, Davis treads carefully along this philosophical conversation, recognizing that others may not adhere to the same moral and religious standards he does. “I have a responsibility to care for everyone no matter who they are or what they believe in. We live in America and we have to make sure everyone’s constitutional rights are protected, including people you may not agree with. I want to make sure everyone enjoys their freedom to do as they choose, within, of course, the confines of the law.”

After 9/11, former police chief William Lansdowne asked Davis to research the Muslim and Sikh communities because of a small increase in hate crimes against them after the terrorist attacks. He met the local imam, Tahir Anwar, at the Muslim mosque on North 3rd Street. He was introduced to the basic precepts and tenets of the Islamic faith. He shared what he had learned about Islam with his fellow officers.

As a result of this connection, he was asked to speak at the “Eid al Fitr,” the feast at the end of the Ramadan fast, the Muslim month of prayer commemorating the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad, the faith’s founder. From sunrise to sundown, Muslims pray and fast (abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex).

The feast becomes a huge celebration of the enlightenment many receive while fasting. Davis has spoken at the celebration for the past three years. This year, he wanted to fast with them because last year he realized while speaking to thousands of people at the celebration that to really begin to understand the Muslim faith he had to fully participate in its most important religious observance. Davis began on Oct. 16 and will end this Sunday.

Officer-Involved Shootings
The worst day in the history of the SJPD was Jan. 20, 1989, when a routine call of a disturbance in downtown turned into a bloody cat-and-mouse shootout that claimed the lives of two police officers and the gunman.

San Jose Police Officer Gene Simpson, 45, died instantly after Randy Connors, 35, a mentally ill man, stalked him and shot him in the head with his own gun. A second officer, Gordon Silva, 39, subsequently died after being struck during a shootout with the suspect.

Simpson and Silva were the first San Jose police officers to die in the line of duty since July 1985 when another officer was also shot to death with his own gun.

“This is very real to us here in the department,” he said. “The danger that can occur when you’re dealing with somebody who’s mentally ill is very real.”

Davis said the department is a leader in crisis intervention training programs to teach their officers how to deal with persons suffering from mental illness. He said the department has a 40-hour academy that trains officers in more effective ways to deal with persons who are mentally ill.

Crisis intervention training is said to have helped the SJPD contribute to a steady decline of officer-involved shootings from eight in 1999 to none in 2002. However, in 2003, there were four cases of officer-involved shootings, two fatal. This year so far, there have been six, five fatal. As a result of the shootings, every officer in the SJPD has been equipped with Taser guns or less lethal electronic devices that stun suspects to subdue them.

“The Taser is just a tool. It’s not a panacea. It’s not going to solve all the problems. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have a police shooting, but to the extent that we can use that tool to prevent some shootings, that’s great,” Davis said. “We believe they’ve been very successful…What we have reviewed thus far has been pretty positive in terms of their effectiveness.”

Davis explained there’s an incredible amount of oversight on a police-involved shooting. He said the incidents are investigated by the department’s homicide unit internal affairs unit, which investigates citizen and department initiated complaints; the San Jose District Attorney’s Office, the coroner’s office, the Santa Clara County crime lab and the Santa Clara County Grant Jury to determine whether they were justified. When they are not justified shootings, the officers involved are indicted. When they are deemed justified the grand jury returns a no “true bill.”

Grand juries of officer-involved shootings in February and March returned no “true bill.” Another grand jury held in October also returned a no true bill. Of the five fatal police shootings this year, three have been adjudicated and two are outstanding.

“The investigation for an officer-involved shooting is not done in a vacuum,” Davis reassured. “It’s good that we have this oversight. People in the community need to know that the police officers involved in the shootings are not just having their cases whitewashed in an investigation. There has to be oversight so people feel comfortable with the process. It’s also in the officers’ best interest to have the additional reviews exonerating them and indicating that the shootings were justifiable.

The SJPD
Begun in 1849, the San Jose Police Department is recognized worldwide for development of state-of-the-art policing techniques and strong leadership, achieving an enviable reputation for its public services.

It’s considered an ultra modern department, widely respected by other departments in the country. It traces its origins to night patrols in the Spanish colonial era in the 18th century.

The 155-year-old department has lost 11 police officers in the line of duty.

It was the first to start community policing and numerous operational, fiscal and technological programs that have placed it at the top of the profession.

The department has almost 1,400 officers, with about 400 non sworn officers, meaning about 1,800 people work for the department in the bureau of investigations, bureau of field operations (includes patrol officers, horse mounted unit, air support unit and swap teams), the bureau of technical services (dispatchers and records) and bureau of administration which oversees the department’s training, personnel and fiscal units.

The San Jose Police Officers’ Association, founded in 1962, is the department’s full-fledged labor organization.

The department usually runs a police academy every year, but because of a lack of funding it hasn’t run an academy for 18 months. Many positions were frozen to save money. A first academy will begin in January of 2005.

Top-step police officers with a college degree and with three years of service make about $90,000.

In March of 2002, San Jose residents passed Measure O by a 72 percent majority vote. The bond appropriated $159 million to build new fire stations and police service centers, upgrade the 911 system and build training facilities. The most significant change is the proposed south valley police substation, which will likely be fully self-supportive and staffed with uniformed, investigative and support personnel.

There’s no single crime that Davis says he’s trying to tackle exclusively. He considers all crimes equally heinous.

After more thought, he offers domestic violence and Internet crimes against children as the most pressing, with the department taking a lead in the country on the latter holding a national conference last June setting the standard on what law enforcement agencies across the country can do to combat the problem. He also cited an increase in identity theft crimes and elderly physical and financial abuse. He’s also concerned about hate crimes.

For more information on the SJPD, 201 West Mission St., San Jose, Calif., 95110, log onto www.sjpd.org.