San Diego Police Department

Gunning down citizens on the highways and byways is a specialty.

If you wish to know why it appears that police internal investigations never really amount to much and you never see a recommendation for prosecution for crimes uncovered by police internal investigations, the following might help.  You should first review the Bob Mullally story to see a real egregious set of events of hiding crimes in internal files.

San Diego Police Department has policy and practice of absolving cops of any responsibility for crimes that the cop reveals to internal affairs investigators.  Yep, you got that right ... a cop can spill his guts to an internal affairs investigation regarding crimes he/she has engaged in and the worst that MIGHT happen to him/her is to be suspended or fired.  Of course it is shown regularly, where cops have been suspended or fired, that they appeal to the Civil Service Commission and get their jobs back and get back pay for the time they were suspended or fired ... you know, getting rewarded with paid and uncharged vacation for actions resulting in getting fired or suspended.  It makes sense to the cops, not to us.

Note in the document links below that the actual documents are saved as images, thus difficult to scale for every browser.  It is recommended that you do a right-click on the link, then do a "save target as" a local file that you can view with your favorite picture viewer.

The following document was prepared in the associated federal civil rights suit active in San Diego District Court where the battle over the release of internal documents went on for many months.  This letter is from an Assistant Chief of Police for SDPD in argument that no files should be released to the Plaintiff in the lawsuit. ...Page 1... Page 2... Page 3... Page 4... ..  where 3 of "San Diego's finest" assaulted the plaintiff, kept him from getting medical attention, locked him up for multiple hours in the back of a car, in handcuffs, after being fully aware that the man made many complaints of injuries and demands for access to medical personnel and facilities.  This sworn official statement reveals a lot about the police attitudes, i.e.: that it is more important to maintain police morale than to hold cops accountable for engaging in criminal events.

Actual civil rights lawsuit currently active in U.S. District Court San Diego: Mitchell v. San Diego Police Department, et al ... Page-1 ... Page-2 ... Page-3 ... Page-4 ... Page-5 ... Page-6 ... Page-7 ... Page-8 ... Page-9 .  Note in this case that Mr. Mitchell, being a wage-earner, could not afford the legal costs approaching $300,000 to hire an attorney and is representing himself.

For those who are paying attention, you will note that one of the defendants in the above lawsuit, Daniel Burow, is the same one who, within weeks after the above incident of attack on a citizen, was involved in running a red light in Mira Mesa (a San Diego community) and killing a young mother.    Burow was, as stated by the then Chief of SDPD, the cause of the woman's death by his negligent behavior.  What was his penalty?  A 3-day suspension from SDPD.