SJPD Online Reporting

[mlm]

Just hoping to get some perspective/advice because I'm wondering if this is worth pursuing

SJPD provide a system to file simple police reports online https://www.sjpd.org/reporting-crime/report-crimes-online. The problem is that it disallows anything with video evidence and requires an in person report. I've gone the latter route twice in the last year because I was reporting what showed up on our RING camera. The first time was a homeless/vandalism issue and I gave up after 15 minutes on hold. Recently I had a minor auto burglary and spent the 10 minutes on hold, 60 minutes having to stay at home till officer showed up and another 20+ minutes talking to a friendly, but chatty CSO.

I'd be less annoyed if I weren't hearing repeatedly from SJPD that they want residents to report everything. They've gone as far (in a community meeting) as calling out the stuff people post on Next Door because it doesn't get logged into their system.

The way I see it, they are taking the position for doing data driven policing which I support. The problem is they have a system where they won't get the data. I mentioned this to my Councilman's office and got a circular response. Also mentioned the problem to the CSO and he acknowledged and just said to answer 'no video' when filing the report and email it later.

I'm thinking this is one of those bureaucratic BS issues that's not worth dealing with, although the City of SJ has their own reporting system (abandoned vehicles, graffiti, etc) that is pretty good. Curious what any SJPD folks think of this.

 

[greenmonster]

Despite their encouragement to report everything I wonder how much time/resources they can can really allot to “minor” offenses like vandalism once those reports are received.

 

[mlm]

Despite their encouragement to report everything I wonder how much time/resources they can can really allot to “minor” offenses like vandalism once those reports are received.

I don't expect them to do anything. My only issue is that they (City and PD) consistently say they need citizens to report things so they know where crimes are happening. Well, the system they have in place is pretty much guaranteeing that won't happen.

Prior time was a couple months ago and some weird guy was going through the neighborhood smashed an old Halloween pumpkin, picked all the oranges off my neighbors tree and smashed them on the sidewalk, pulled up flowers...it was actually kind of funny, but it turns out he had been going through the neighareborhood doing this multiple times. Lots of reports on Next Door, and I doubt any of it ever made an actual police report.

So, when anyone ever does get through the line is always "you have to tell us these things or how are we supposed to know what's happening?"

yeah...the skeptical side of me wonders if that's the point. And if it is it is, I just want to know if it's worth trying to help them fix it.

 

[bojangle]

The wait times are due to the very low staffing ratio per capita for a large city. California agencies tend to be among the lowest staffed in the country. San Jose is no exception.

 

[mlm]

The wait times are due to the very low staffing ratio per capita for a large city. California agencies tend to be among the lowest staffed in the country. San Jose is no exception.

I understand, and that isn’t the issue. I am specifically targeting the reason why they require an officer when there is video evidence, but not otherwise.

 

[bojangle]

I understand, and that isn’t the issue. I am specifically targeting the reason why they require an officer when there is video evidence, but not otherwise.

Follow up. Or at least potential follow up.

Most agencies utilize on line reporting for those less serious crimes where there are no investigative leads. They won't be assigned to anyone and will just be filed for documentation purposes, such as statistics and insurance claims. They would categorize cases with video as those with evidence that provides potentially investigative leads. Thus the wait time for an officer or CSO. Video would also be required to be booked into evidence if connected to a crime report. An officer or CSO would need to be assigned to maintain the chain of evidence. On line reports are there to lessen the work load on officers for cases that won't be investigated, or have evidence to book. They also provide a convenient way for the public to report such incidents.

 

[ctwo]

I gather that having physical evidence is much more actionable than simply reporting that you saw something (like oranges being tossed to the sidewalk. ), so they probably want to come out and collect it.

I've never had luck reporting crime, even hit and run with description of vehicle, driver, and partial plate - they would not even take the report because not enough damage (>$1000) and no physical injury.

 

[ctwo]

Follow up. Or at least potential follow up.

Most agencies utilize on line reporting for those less serious crimes where there are no investigative leads. They won't be assigned to anyone and will just be filed for documentation purposes, such as statistics and insurance claims. They would categorize cases with video as those with evidence that provides potentially investigative leads. Thus the wait time for an officer or CSO. Video would also be required to be booked into evidence if connected to a crime report. An officer or CSO would need to be assigned to maintain the chain of evidence. On line reports are there to lessen the work load on officers for cases that won't be investigated, or have evidence to book. They also provide a convenient way for the public to report such incidents.

Perfect. I'll try to convince myself that the data would be used to strategize enforcement. :skeptical

 

[mlm]

Follow up. Or at least potential follow up.

Most agencies utilize on line reporting for those less serious crimes where there are no investigative leads. They won't be assigned to anyone and will just be filed for documentation purposes, such as statistics and insurance claims. They would categorize cases with video as those with evidence that provides potentially investigative leads. Thus the wait time for an officer or CSO. Video would also be required to be booked into evidence if connected to a crime report. An officer or CSO would need to be assigned to maintain the chain of evidence. On line reports are there to lessen the work load on officers for cases that won't be investigated, or have evidence to book. They also provide a convenient way for the public to report such incidents.

Appreciate and respect your answer, but the process is broken. To be fair, I've seen the same issue in many problem tracking systems.

A data driven process doesn't work when you don't get the data. Even the CSO I was chatting with acknowledged the issue and said to just answer 'no' when it asks if you had evidence. Note that this is the text that appears immediately next to where he said to "lie".

If you answered NO to all the questions in this section, please continue.

Note: Filing a false police report is a crime! Every person who knowingly makes a false report is guilty of a misdemeanor per 148.5 (a) of the California Penal Code.

According to him (if the warning didn't dissuade people) the online report will end up emailing you a case number and you can just send them the video link in an email with the case number. That's fine with me, and I'm not making any expectation they take action.

So why not update the collection process/form? And who makes that decision? Is there some sort of law preventing evidence from being posted electronically? If it is a matter of securing funding to do it and bitching to my councilman could help then I'm all for it. If nobody cares (at the PD level) then I don't want to waste my time, nor theirs. I'm fine bitching at my councilman's office because they're pulling the "we can't fix what you don't report" bullshit. I have no desire to piss off the popo

 

[mlm]

I just replied to my councilman's office after their typical brush off response to my initial complaint. I'll stick to venting at them because they played the "we can't fix what people don't report" card at a neighborhood meeting a few months back

Told them they can take this seriously or I'll forward to the neighborhood watch group and make sure people know how to properly interpret the "you have to report things" excuse in the future. There is at least one lady in that group that enjoys making their lives hell

 

[bojangle]

Appreciate and respect your answer, but the process is broken. To be fair, I've seen the same issue in many problem tracking systems.

A data driven process doesn't work when you don't get the data. Even the CSO I was chatting with acknowledged the issue and said to just answer 'no' when it asks if you had evidence. Note that this is the text that appears immediately next to where he said to "lie".


According to him (if the warning didn't dissuade people) the online report will end up emailing you a case number and you can just send them the video link in an email with the case number. That's fine with me, and I'm not making any expectation they take action.

So why not update the collection process/form? And who makes that decision? Is there some sort of law preventing evidence from being posted electronically? If it is a matter of securing funding to do it and bitching to my councilman could help then I'm all for it. If nobody cares (at the PD level) then I don't want to waste my time, nor theirs. I'm fine bitching at my councilman's office because they're pulling the "we can't fix what you don't report" bullshit. I have no desire to piss off the popo

There is an entire code book with laws related to evidence in California. There could be a number of issues with allowing people to simply upload their digital evidence on a PD server, especially if it were ever to be used in court. The server that accepts uploads from the public is not a secure location to store digital evidence. There could be source issues, hearsay issues, and chain of evidence issues.

Ring has a public safety platform. https://ring.com/neighbors-public-safety-service. This seems like a better way to go if the goal is just to make police aware of certain trends and such. If a case, or series of cases are to be made, police would still need to contact each victim, get statements, and collect evidence.

On line reporting, while convenient, is simply better geared toward documenting those incidents where there is no suspect information, no investigative leads, and no evidence to book. While they could be expanded to take many other reports, it would require each of those cases to be assigned to an officer. That will impact other services and vice versa. It won't help to ease work loads. And there woukd still be legal issues with directly uploading video evidence.

I just replied to my councilman's office after their typical brush off response to my initial complaint. I'll stick to venting at them because they played the "we can't fix what people don't report" card at a neighborhood meeting a few months back

Told them they can take this seriously or I'll forward to the neighborhood watch group and make sure people know how to properly interpret the "you have to report things" excuse in the future. There is at least one lady in that group that enjoys making their lives hell

Sounds like typical political speak to me.

 

[mlm]

There is an entire code book with laws related to evidence in California. There could be a number of issues with allowing people to simply upload their digital evidence on a PD server, especially if it were ever to be used in court. The server that accepts uploads from the public is not a secure location to store digital evidence. There could be source issues, hearsay issues, and chain of evidence issues.

Ring has a public safety platform. https://ring.com/neighbors-public-safety-service. This seems like a better way to go if the goal is just to make police aware of certain trends and such. If a case, or series of cases are to be made, police would still need to contact each victim, get statements, and collect evidence.

On line reporting, while convenient, is simply better geared toward documenting those incidents where there is no suspect information, no investigative leads, and no evidence to book. While they could be expanded to take many other reports, it would require each of those cases to be assigned to an officer. That will impact other services and vice versa. It won't help to ease work loads. And there woukd still be legal issues with directly uploading video evidence.



Sounds like typical political speak to me.

Yeah, this is just forwarding a link to a RING video stored in the cloud. My expectation is they wouldn't do shit, but if they had reliable reporting they'd be able to see trends and have the option to look back at video evidence/follow up with victims.

And yeah, it's political BS. I've lived in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and San Jose. San Jose is about 10th on my list of favorites

 

[Shaggy]

Video footage isn't as worthy as most people seem to think. Even with clear video footage that is of identification quality, the person looking at the video would still need to know who the person is in order to close the case.

Most video footage is NOT identification quality and on top of that, in a large city like San Jose there is almost zero chance that the person is known to police.

Saying there is "no video evidence" is not filing a false police report. The crime still occurred and documentation will help the police allocate resources if available. Filing a false police report is saying that a crime occurred when it did not in-fact knowingly occur.

148.5.
(a) Every person who reports to any peace officer listed in Section 830.1 or 830.2, or subdivision (a) of Section 830.33, the Attorney General, or a deputy attorney general, or a district attorney, or a deputy district attorney that a felony or misdemeanor has been committed, knowing the report to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
(b) Every person who reports to any other peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, that a felony or misdemeanor has been committed, knowing the report to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor if (1) the false information is given while the peace officer is engaged in the performance of his or her duties as a peace officer and (2) the person providing the false information knows or should have known that the person receiving the information is a peace officer.
(c) Except as provided in subdivisions (a) and (b), every person who reports to any employee who is assigned to accept reports from citizens, either directly or by telephone, and who is employed by a state or local agency which is designated in Section 830.1, 830.2, subdivision (e) of Section 830.3, Section 830.31, 830.32, 830.33, 830.34, 830.35, 830.36, 830.37, or 830.4, that a felony or misdemeanor has been committed, knowing the report to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor if (1) the false information is given while the employee is engaged in the performance of his or her duties as an agency employee and (2) the person providing the false information knows or should have known that the person receiving the information is an agency employee engaged in the performance of the duties described in this subdivision.
(d) Every person who makes a report to a grand jury that a felony or misdemeanor has been committed, knowing the report to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor. This subdivision shall not be construed as prohibiting or precluding a charge of perjury or contempt for any report made under oath in an investigation or proceeding before a grand jury.
(e) This section does not apply to reports made by persons who are required by statute to report known or suspected instances of child abuse, dependent adult abuse, or elder abuse.
(f) This section applies to a person who reports to a person described in subdivision (a), (b), or (c), that a firearm, as defined in subdivision (a) or (b) of Section 16520, has been lost or stolen, knowing the report to be false.
(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 47, Sec. 1. (AB 1695) Effective January 1, 2017.)

 

[mlm]

This is what the CSO said, and that it was OK to file online. I sent a message to my councilman’s office explaining what he told me and asking them to try and get the reporting site updated/clarified. The staff person responded saying it was great the CSO showed me a ‘shortcut’ and then proceeded to tell me you had to wait on hold and file in person. She also acknowledged they always urge people to report stuff and that not enough people do!

Move San Jose down to 11th on my favorites list. Although I have to give Chappie Jones credit. Nobody is going to get complaints through his staff!