SAN DIEGO — The three Minneapolis Police officers who were with Derek Chauvin will face charges of their own later this year because they didn't try to stop Chauvin from killing George Floyd. Now new policies about witnessing excessive force are being implemented around the country, including in San Diego.
News 8's LaMonica Peters talks to San Diego's Commission on Police Practices about the changes and a former officer who helped change the rules in her city's police dept.
She said she been pushing for these changes for years and believes every officer in the country should have a duty to intervene, but when she did it, it cost her her job.
Former Buffalo Police Officer Cariol Holloman-Horne said back in 2006, Neal Mack was already handcuffed when Officer Greg Kwiatkowski started punching Mack in the face and choking him.
"I yelled to him 'Greg, you're choking him!' When he didn't stop, I grabbed his arm from around his neck. So, after that he punched me in the face," said Holloman-Horne.
In 2008, Holloman-Horne was terminated for intervening, losing her pension just months before she was to retire.
"I did stop a bad officer and I was fired for it. So, officers don't want to lose their livelihood. They don't want to be ostracized by pretty much, bad officers," Holloman-Horne said.
In 2018, Kwiatkowski was sentenced to four months in federal prison for a 2009 incident involving excessive force with four Black teenagers. Just last month, Holloman-Horne had her pension reinstated. She also successfully campaigned to pass Cariol's Law in Buffalo, which requires police officers to intervene if they witness excessive force and protection for the officer who stops it.
Last year, San Diegans voted to create a Commission on Police Practices and the chair said San Diego Police have also implemented a rule requiring officers to intervene and report excessive force.
"We're really trying to make sure that some of the things we see happening in other areas of the country, don't happen here. So, we're trying to be proactive and make policy recommendations," said Brandon Hilpert, Chair of the Commission on Police Practices.
Hilpert said the commission will hire independent investigators to look deeper into every case.
"Once they finish that, they will then present that to the commission and the commission will vote on whether or not we agree or disagree," he said.
Hilpert said since last year, complaints about San Diego Police have jumped. In a typical year, there are up to 70 reports; this year, they've already seen 112 serious complaints.
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