SAN DIEGO POLICE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
OFFICER MORTALITY
Between 1976-1990, the San Diego Police Department had the highest big city, per capita officer mortality rate in the United States. Today they have one of the lowest. How they changed it has been studied by police departments across the world.
It was found some citizens regarded SDPD officers as too laid back and casual, a factor that could certainly result in an officer’s death. Another common opinion was lack of staffing caused officers to be placed in danger when they were required to respond to calls without a cover officer. To fix that problem, more officers needed to be hired.
Safety equipment also needed to be brought up to modern standards. Many officers were still using the same six shot, .38 caliber handgun issued to officers in 1902. To give the officers more firepower, the department adopted the 9mm handgun as a standard duty weapon.
A top priority was also made to get each officer their own portable radio so they could communicate with one another when they were out of the police car. Police cars were uniformly equipped with the latest safety equipment as well as additional lights to increase safety on traffic stops. All uniformed officers were required to wear bulletproof vests when on duty.
Academy training was introduced using real life scenarios where officers had been injured or killed. New tactics, called contact and cover, were introduced and officers were taught to rely on specific training when contacting suspects in the field.
The hard work has paid off. In the decade and a half since the formation of the task force, only two officers had been killed in the line of duty.
Regarding the issue of not enough cops, it took an official survey to confirm what the department and many citizens knew all along. With only 1.5 officers per 1000 residents, there simply weren’t enough to do the job. Response time to calls for service was long and many officers were working alone on beats the size of small cities.
Historically speaking staffing had always been a problem, but now people were starting to notice. In response to the public outcry, the City Council imposed a mandate upon themselves to employ 2.0 officers per thousand citizens.
While any additional officers would be an improvement, compared to figures nationally, even the 2.0 ratio was low. Many east coast cites average 4.0 officers per thousand. Even San Diego’s neighbor to the north Los Angeles, another city traditionally short-staffed, had a ratio of 2.5.
By the year 2000, the numbers had improved only slightly. But then, in 2004, another crisis began to unfold, the under funding of the city pension system. That would lead to more cuts and even layoffs.
Police work has always had inherent dangers. However, by the 1970’s and early 1980’s, SDPD officers were dying at rates far above the national average. In response to the high mortality rate the department was struggling to cope with, Chief Bill Kolender established an officer safety task force with a simple mission; find out why so many police officers were being killed in the line of duty and how prevent it.
The task force was comprised of officers of all ranks and no opinion was deemed invaluable. Once seated the task force took a hard and objective look at department policy and procedures as well as training and public attitude. Opinions were asked of patrol officers, detectives and ranking officers as to what they thought could be done to make the job of policing San Diego’s streets safer.
When it was over, the task force made more than 100 recommendations for ways to improve officer safety. Among these was to establish San Diego as a police department of fair but efficient officers.
Video Courtesy of In The Line Of Duty Productions
