By Francine Maxwell
San Diego, how many zeroes do we need to add up before this city finally admits what the community has been screaming for years? The San Diego Police Department is operating without real accountability, without effective training, and without consequences — and the cost keeps going up.
We just hit $50 million in payouts in one week. Thirty million dollars for the police killing of a 16-year-old. Another major payout for a foster youth whose trauma was so egregious it had to be discussed in closed session.
This isn’t bad luck. This isn’t “unfortunate.” This is a pattern — a pattern we keep paying for.
Let’s talk about that $30 million settlement for the killing of a child. Because yes, he was a child. Sixteen.
SDPD officers moved the way they always do: fast, reckless, and without fear of consequence. They shot first and justified later. They escalated instead of de-escalating. They acted like training is optional and accountability is imaginary.
Then they handed us the bill.
Every time SDPD harms someone — physically, psychologically, or fatally — the city raids every taxpayer’s wallet like it’s an ATM. And let’s be honest: Why should they stop?
There is no discipline. There is no termination. There is no meaningful reform.
Just more “thoughts,” more “reviews,” more “police union statements,” and more money leaving our general fund.
We are told these payouts are “not an admission of guilt.” Well, if SDPD isn’t guilty, they are at least dangerously incompetent. And incompetence this expensive should worry everyone.
Because San Diego can’t keep writing checks for a department that refuses to change.
We are spending tens of millions of dollars cleaning up the consequences of officers who never face consequences of their own. We are funding lawsuits instead of parks. Payouts instead of youth programs. Settlements instead of real reform.
And the saddest part? The community saw this coming. We said the training was ineffective. We said officers were escalating encounters. We said leadership was not correcting behavior. We said misconduct was being ignored or buried.
But when Black and Brown residents sound the alarm, no one at City Hall hears it.
Then the lawsuit hits, the council enters closed session, the city attorney shuffles papers, and suddenly everyone wants to look shocked.
Let me be very clear: There is nothing shocking about predictable outcomes.
SDPD has been moving without accountability for so long, this is the culture now.
And that culture has disastrous costs. Right now, it’s costing us millions. And it cost a 16-year-old his life.
Money won’t fix that. But accountability could prevent the next one.
San Diego must decide: Do we keep paying settlements? Or do we invest in real accountability, real training, real reform, and leadership that isn’t afraid of its own police union?
Because if nothing changes, the next tragedy is already loading. And the next multimillion-dollar settlement is already on the horizon.
And our community — especially the people buried, silenced, and grieving — deserve better than a city that keeps learning nothing.
It has been years since we had police preciincts in San Diego and even longer since the San Diego Police Department ever did anything more than take facts for a paper document. Where I live, they say a robbery has to exceed $5000 in value and might take a week for an investigation that only results in a paper report for insurance purposes. Burglars come and go removing bicycles and personal items, teens jump the fence and cannonball in the swimming pool or urinate in the Jacuzzi and police repeat paper reports for insurance purposes. One day two really young police were knocking on a neighbor’s door searching for a man who had sold his unit 3 years before, but it took 3 years to follow up on the complaint. The only police I ever see are Downtown.
70% of police polled as Trumpers.
Growing up in SD, sad to see little has changed for the better.
70% of PD officers nation wide? Or SD specifically? I know several SDPD officers who are definitely not Trumpers tho they do admit to not doing their jobs the way they should be. Probably has to do with how the city prioritizes things.
Years ago the SDPD”s motto on their cop cars was YOUR SAFTEY OUR BUSINESS.We always joked about that one.That’s in the days when their cop cars were white with a gum ball red strobe on the top of their cars.They had to change their motto,along with wearing helmets and their three foot long billy clubs.All though times have changed,some of these boys are still dangerous,be safe out there.
Yeah, and some of us joked back then before the end of the pot prohibition that the motto actually was “YOUR BUSINESS OUR BUSINESS.”
While there may be a percentage of conscientious individuals that actually know and follow laws enshrined in the Bill of Rights the rules designed to protect the unarmed public from the ignorant, the violent, and sociopaths that gravitate towards positions of power over others, the general mode of hiring since the South Carolina Runaway Slave Patrol Police days hasn’t really changed all that much I’m afraid.
Personally SZ, claiming up to 70% of cops are MAGA and voted DJT, I’d have bet countrywide it was higher than that. Remember, he was talking about declaring an Immunity just like SCOTUS did for him….though he hasn’t exactly kept that campaign promise. Yet.
With the invention of ‘Qualified Immunity’ during the Nixon Administration, there really is very little ‘self policing’ as witnessed by the profusion of cell phone video released the numerous civilian cop watcher/auditors websites. Some are even ex-LEOs such as We the People University (a former cop and ex-sheriff deputy), lawyers such as The Civil Rights Lawyer channel along with too many to list others forums both large and small operations.
It doesn’t help that their new hires are not trained as thoroughly nor as long as a hairdresser is required to learn their job…which is extremely telling. Excepting maybe the ‘warrior ethos’ part.
When you won’t get hired scoring too high on cop tests, you know the ‘system’ is not only broken but never really worked in the first place.
Ending ‘qualified immunity,’ requiring far more stringent psychological testing, much better broad-based education, and along with much harsher penalties for those that step outside the new lines that should be demanded in behavior towards civilians. Also, anyone that wants to be an armed LEO would need to be bonded and insured just like so many other contractors.
My thoughts on this. That San Diego kid running away from attackers the cop killed? Why should taxpayers foot the $30,000,000 payout? Where is the personal responsibility that is demanded of citizens?
sealintheSelkirks