In 2024, 16 complaints of various levels of misconduct were filed against Santa Barbara police officers; that’s down from the 23 filed the year before. Of those 16, eight were filed by police administrators and eight by members of the public at large. Of the 16 filed this past year, three of the complaints were sustained, five were deemed unfounded, and two were deemed “not sustained.” Of the three sustained complaints, one led to an officer’s termination and two led to corrective counseling.
In 2023, by contrast, 20 of the 26 complaints were filed by members of the public and six by departmental brass. Eight complaints were sustained, nine were exonerated, eight were deemed unfounded, and one was not sustained. Of the eight complaints deemed sustained, one lead to a termination, one to a demotion, two to suspensions, one to a written reprimand, and three to corrective counseling.
This drop in number of complaints took place at the same time the number of calls for service increased by 13 percent, and the instances in which force was used increased from 93 in 2023 to 109 in 2024. All this came out in at a meeting of the City of Santa Barbara’s Fire and Police Commission last week.
In June 2022, the commission had been given, for the first time, explicit authority over police misconduct allegations. This came in response to community demands, sparked by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020. The activist organization Healing Justice began the call for action leading the City Council to approve the Community Formation Commission to recommend ways to have public oversight of the police.
At the time, several members of the Formation Commission expressed dissatisfaction with the final decision to turn police oversight to the Fire and Police Commission, terming it “a slap in the face,” Instead of forming a brand new 11-member commission as the activist community had wanted, the police review function was folded into a reconstituted Fire and Police Commission with expanded responsibilities.
The revised and expanded Fire and Police commission would receive all reports on use of force as well as complaints against the department, and concerns about potential ethnic profiling during routine police stops. These charges have been publicly televised where the commissioners have questioned the police chief.
Last week’s meeting — held three days before the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder — elicited only praise for the police department’s detailed reports and the direction it was taking. No member of the public showed up in person or via Zoom to comment.
