Complaints about San Jose Police officers up in 2025 police auditor finds

In the South Bay, new numbers do show San Jose police reported nearly 600 incidents where force was used just last year. Now, that number is up slightly from 2024 and is one of the reasons an independent auditor is now recommending a dozen changes to police procedures. KTVU's Mark Sayer, live tonight at San Jose City Hall, where the report was presented just this afternoon. Mark? Well, Mike, this report also found that the number of complaints against San Jose PD directly from citizens was at a five-year high, and the Independent Police Auditor, or IPA, found about 10% of those complaints did involve policy violations on the part of San Jose officers. In 2025, San Jose police had just three officer-involved shootings, and two of those were fatal. In one case in July, a 48-year-old man had stabbed his son at Kitaldi Park in the northeast part of the city and charged at responding officers with a knife in his hand. He was shot and killed by two officers. This case is still open and has not yet reached the IPA, but Mayor Matt Mahan says it is important that cases like this are reviewed and city leaders get a full accounting of police actions. But it's an important moment of transparency that builds trust with the community to know that the council and the public through the media is aware of any and all complaints and that they're documented, they're tracked, we look for trends. In 2025, San Jose police reported 598 incidents where force was used. This includes cases of great bodily injury, officer-involved shootings, and other cases of so-called critical outcomes. This is up about 5% compared to 2024. The number of allegations against officers is also up, with more than 1,000 in 2025, compared to about 750 the prior year. Police procedure, courtesy, and bias-based policing were the top categories. Communities that trust their police department are safer because they're more likely to report crime, share evidence, serve as witnesses. The independent police auditor has made a dozen specific recommendations, including limiting officers' access to license plate reading cameras to department-issued devices. That was a top concern of community members addressing the council. The fact is public trust in the police has just been demolished, right? It's horrible. Mass surveillance in any form must be ended. The IPA also wants additional training in the use of cell phone tracking technology, establishing specific guidelines when directing occupants to exit a vehicle and to prohibit the use of profanity as a de-escalation technique. We'll continue to track the implementation in these policies and obviously we're continuing. We always train. We're always trying to be better. We appreciate the IPA's partnership in making us better and holding us accountable. Now, of the one dozen recommendations, San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph told the council here this afternoon, the department fully agrees with ten of them and partially agrees with two more. All of the implementation is already underway, should be completed by the first quarter of next year. And, Mike, one additional interesting tidbit out of this report today, there was one officer that received seven separate complaints from seven different community members leading the department in the terms of the complaints directly from him. And so coming off of that, Mark, do we know if those complaints were justified? Or even if we don't know, what happens to an officer when those complaints start to actually add up? Yeah, well, it's two different policies here. We do know that the IPA found about 10% of those community complaints were, in fact, justified. The complaint was seen by a resident, and they said, yes, there was a department violation there. In terms of disciplinary process within the police department, that is a separate track. This process here is to report to the council, kind of aggregate data, look for trends, But the outcome on any particular officer, what happens to them, that's within the department's disciplinary procedure. Got it.