Thread: San Jose police taking steps to ease Latino leaders' concern

San Jose police taking steps to ease Latino leaders' concerns
By Rodney Foo
Mercury News
Article Launched: 03/30/2007 11:45:11 AM PDT


Addressing a roomful of Latino leaders, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis today announced his office plans to streamline the complaint process against officers and enhance cultural sensitivity training.

Davis' unusual news conference came as the Mexican consulate and a county supervisor have raised concerns about the police treatment of Latino and African Americans. Since becoming head of the 1,350-officer force three years ago, Davis has called just a handful of news conferences.

Davis pledged he will meet monthly with La Raza Roundtable, a Latino civil rights group, over the next six months to discuss progress on monitoring and changing police behavior. The chief said his staff is studying how 17 other police departments handle complaints against officers. He expects the survey to be completed in May. At one point Thursday, it appeared there would be dueling news conferences on the allegations that some officers mistreat Latinos.

Tuesday, some Latino leaders announced a news conference scheduled for noon today in front of City Hall to discuss "police abuse" and urge Mayor Chuck Reed and the city council to "take a leadership role on the unabated police brutality cases."

Thursday, Davis announced his own news conference at 11:30 a.m. today involving other Latino leaders at the Center for Training and Careers.

But after some behind-the-scenes talks, the news conference announced by the Latino groups was combined with Davis' event.

Among those in attendance were Davis, Reed, county Supervisor Blanca Alvarado and Mexican Consul Bruno Figueroa.

The news conference was an outgrowth of two separate events last week involving police and the Latino community.

First, police released an unprecedented statistical report that revealed Latinos represented more than half of the use-of-force arrests in San Jose. It also suggested that African Americans were subjected to use of force outside of statistical norms.

The report did show that less than 5 percent of 34,000 arrests resulted in force being used - control holds, batons, pepper spray, Tasers.

Instead of the numbers bolstering the department's contention that officers seldom resort to force, it fueled the suspicions of civil rights groups that Latinos and blacks are apt to be targeted for abuse.

A day after the report, Figueroa released a statement urging police to respect Latinos while citing the July 30 arrests of Asencsion Calderon, a San Jose tire store owner, and his nephew, Samuel Santana, as a case of excessive force.

According to Figueroa, Calderson had merely stopped and asked an officer what was going on with Santana, who was being questioned about a traffic violation on Alum Rock Avenue, when he was allegedly attacked by officers, including one who reportedly called Santana, a U.S. citizen, a "wetback."

Both Calderon and Santana were arrested on a misdemeanor charge of resisting or obstructing a police officer.

Calderon and Santana eventually had charges against them dismissed after a Superior Court judge declared a mistrial.

An internal affairs investigation into the incident has not been completed. Meanwhile, Calderon is deciding whether to sue police.

In the statement released today, Garza also said: "`La Raza Roundtable would like to go on record, we do not condone any misconduct or mistreatment by police officers to any resident in the city of San Jose. Over-representation of Latinos and African Americans in the detention system has always been in the forefront of our agenda and is an ongoing issue that is being addressed by La Raza Roundtable."

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5558028

And here's an update to the above story: Look out Paris!

South Bay's activist Mexican consul assigned to Paris
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
Article Launched: 03/30/2007 01:39:25 AM PDT

A week after raising brutality allegations against the San Jose Police Department, Mexican Consul General Bruno Figueroa announced Thursday that he's been re-assigned and is moving to Paris this summer.

"Does that have anything to do with ... " wondered Ivonne Montes de Oca, president of the Pinnacle Co., a Bay Area public relations firm, and a friend of Figueroa's.

Some in the Latino community may be wondering if Figueroa's reassignment was sparked by his public excoriation of the police department and his allegations of brutality against a legal Mexican immigrant, Ascensio`n Caldero`n, who owns a tire company. It was an unusual role, they said, for a consul who is expected to stick to international issues.

In an interview with the Mercury News, Figueroa, 41, a career diplomat, said the two events were not connected.

Figueroa said he's known since early March about his new assignment. It was a surprise, because he hoped to serve another year in San Jose. The move to France is a promotion to alternate ambassador, Mexico's representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international body that works to find solutions to globalization.

"There's no connection between my departure and the Caldero`n case," Figueroa said. "We career diplomats are subject to rotation every three years."

Figueroa, who arrived in Silicon Valley in the fall of 2004, called his departure "sad news" because, he
Advertisement
said, he enjoyed his time in San Jose.

By many accounts, Figueroa's vocal role in the brutality allegations against San Jose police was just the latest evidence during his tenure of his community activism for Mexican arts and the health and education of Mexican nationals in the South Bay.

He brought an important exhibit of the work of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, one of Mexico's leading modern photographers, to the San Jose Art Museum in 2005. He spruced up with new paint and art an aged 1960s consulate on North First Street. He brought a food event on Mexican cuisine to downtown San Jose.

When Figueroa first arrived, the consulate ran one "Plaza Comunitaria," a literacy education center in Watsonville. He added two in San Jose and one in Salinas. In negotiations with Santa Clara County family services, Figueroa established protocols to help find temporary or permanent homes for Mexican minors.

With his wife, Veronica, a journalist and anthropologist, Figueroa made appearances at numerous community events, including a reader forum for the Mercury News.

"I don't know the world of diplomats, so when I met him I was surprised to see him in the community," said Tamara Alvarado, executive director of MACLA, Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, a non-profit downtown arts group.

"Let's face it, diplomats are not here because they had to leave the country," she said. "My ancestors came here because they had to."

But Figueroa's devotion to community issues and events, Alvarado and others said, dispelled notions he would be the stereotypical aloof and distant diplomat focused on matters international. That he spoke out so strongly about a local civil rights issue - albeit on behalf of a Mexican national who is in the United States legally - did not go unnoticed.

"When he stood up and said, `That's not right,'" Alvarado said, "I was really happy to see that. That's the kind of advocacy that a diplomat in California should be doing."

Figueroa, the son of a retired electrical engineer for Hewlett-Packard and a librarian, was the third of five siblings. He was born in 1965 and raised in Mexico City.

After studies in international relations at El Colegio de Mexico and the National School of Administration of France, he joined Mexico's foreign ministry. His first job was in Paris, where he worked as a press attache at the embassy for five years. Next, he was posted in Vienna, serving as deputy head of mission at the Mexican Embassy. He returned to Mexico City, and in 2004 became consul general in San Jose. It was his first job in America.

There are 47 Mexican consuls in the United States, and their roles in communities where large numbers of Mexican immigrants live have evolved in recent years, Figueroa said. From administration to issuing documents, consuls everywhere have taken on increasingly hands-on roles in communities, he said, all in the name of protecting the rights of Mexican nationals abroad.

"I will miss the valley and the work that I've been doing here," said the multilingual Figueroa, who speaks Spanish, English, French and German. "My work here was humane, community-oriented, and I loved that work."

Montes de Oca, past president of the Hispanic Foundation, said Figueroa is "dignified and fun at the same time."

Before becoming friends, she said she didn't know how to address him, being that he is a diplomat and all.

"I would say, seor consul," she said. "And he'd say, `call me Bruno.' I kept apologizing for using the familiar `tu,' or you, when speaking with him."

With Bruno's help, Montes de Oca and the local Rotary Club raised the funds to retrofit a used van for handicapped students in Oaxaca.

"In my opinion, he's looking after the needs of his compatriots," Montes de Oca said. "That's how he sees his role. How refreshing. How right at the same time. That should be the job description of all diplomats."

But not everyone is sad to see Figueroa go.

Bobby Lopez, the president of the San Jose Police Officers' Association, all but rebuked Figueroa for meddling in police affairs.

Reached Thursday and told of Figueroa's transfer to Paris, Lopez said, "I'll send him a bottle of French wine when he gets there. Better yet, I'll send him some California wine."

Mercury News Staff Writer Sean Webby contributed to this report. Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@mercurynews.com or (40 920-5794.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5554998