News & Commentary
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego City Council Considers Whether to Continue Surveillance Use Policies
By Blair Overstreet
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – Vista City Council Considers the Community Safety and Due Process Resolution
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego County Board of Supervisors Considers Drafting CLEAR Ordinance
By Brisa Velazquez
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego City Council Considers Due Process & Safety Ordinance
By Brisa Velazquez
Summer 2017 Legal Internship Opportunity
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Position Description: Full-time summer positions. Duties may include research, writing, interviewing and fact investigation for cases involving constitutional and civil rights.
Internships are unpaid: However, the ACLU is willing to discuss cooperating with students in the grant application process.
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For San Diego Police Department, Body Cameras Not Translating into Transparency
Chief Zimmerman this week went so far as to urge a court to deny a request for release of a recent security camera video footage that captured a fatal officer-involved shooting. In her declaration to the court, the Chief argues that the community cannot be trusted with the truth. It would be too dangerous, she claims, to allow the public to view the video that captured a fatal shooting by an SDPD officer in a dark alley in the Midway District earlier this year.
What the Chief fails to realize is that SDPD secrecy will make us all less safe, not more and undermines trust in the police.
The ACLU has repeatedly urged the Department to release the video to demonstrate its commitment to transparency. Despite the Chief’s claims, the release of the video would not hamper investigation into the shooting nor would it threaten the privacy of any other party. The officer and Fridoon Rawshan Nehad, who died there, were alone in that alley. The officer inexplicably and in violation of SDPD policy failed to turn on his body camera.
In this case, the public’s interest in understanding what happened clearly outweighs the privacy interests of those involved. A man is dead; the involved officer has already been identified. The video will simply show what happened. The Department’s decision to urge the court to keep the video hidden sends a strong message that the SDPD is more interested in circling the wagons than committing to transparency with the community it serves.
David Trujillo is Advocacy Director for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.
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