By Megan Burks
San Diegans concerned about police racial profiling will have to wait eight more months for the results of an independent study on the San Diego Police Department.
Councilwoman Marti Emerald announced Wednesday she’s postponing a report promised this month until all three stages of the study are complete.
The decision was made in private and discussed only in a non-agenda public comment at Wednesday’s public safety committee meeting.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Kellen Russoniello told the committee the decision contradicts earlier rhetoric promising transparency. Emerald ordered the study by San Diego State researchers in February in response to months of public scrutiny of the department.
“SDPD has consistently kicked the can on providing any meaningful analysis of the data,” Russoniello said, referring to previous reports by the department that offered raw data but no analysis. “SDPD and this committee both committed to open, honest dialogue about this data and other community concerns by promising to hear the results this fall. The public deserves to have the information as it is available.”
Emerald said she delayed the report until next summer because she learned in recent days the report is only a third of the way done and she doesn’t want the information to come out piecemeal.
“They’re just not done yet,” Emerald said. “And we don’t feel that it’s responsible to release partial information along the way.”
But that was always the plan. The researchers told KPBS in June — shortly after the city approved the plan — that the study would come out in three stages. The analysis of racial data from traffic stops was to be released in the fall, interviews with residents in the spring and interviews with police in the summer.
Emerald, who led the Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon, didn’t respond to a request for clarification before this story was published.
She said at the meeting she has not been given a preview of the results and will see them when the public does next summer.