Lies, Damned Lies and Attorneys General

Attorneys General indeed, because Bacerra's predecessor, the half-Jamaican and full U.S. Senator embraced ignorance with equal fervour.

Just now, I was compelled to write as follows:

Mr. Attorney General;

Yesterday, with serendipity or some others marvelous form of divine coincidence, you issued a propaganda piece that was entitled: California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board Releases Video Highlighting Data Integrity.

In that email-published piece, published about 30 days after the meeting where the matters were discussed, but one day after my small flood of communications on these matters, you sought to assure the public (“the communities they are sworn to protect”) of the good faith of the California Department of Justice. Perhaps you sought to set history aside. Whatever it was that you sought to accomplish, your communication was a disgrace and should be withdrawn (if wishes were horses this beggar would ride.)

I ignored the fool-talk that preceded your remarks, for they are the utterances of persons who would, if challenged, claim ignorance, and am instead focused on your remarks which remarks are:

“We must always strive to strengthen trust between peace officers and the communities they are sworn to protect,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “When it comes to analyzing the impact law enforcement activity has on Californians, we need to know that the data coming in is reliable. This video illustrates the efforts being made to ensure the integrity of the stop data.”

Clever as it is worded, it is profoundly dishonest to write that “we need to know” because you and your underlings already do know that the data coming in is unreliable. The City of San Diego, this writer, and two or more persons in positions of authority (or persons in-the-know) from the City of Los Angeles, have told your deputies and members of the RIPA Board so.

 In response to your attempt at deception, I sent the following to the persons shown; like so:

Richard Hylton Thu, May 9, 2019 at 1:13 PM Draft To: AB953 Cc: Nancy Beninati , Shirley Webber , Joe.Kocurek@asm.ca.gov, Alliance San Diego , ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties , Kelsey Geiser

I am happy to see that the CA-DOJ is paying attention; taking heed. The unfortunate fact remains that audits that were locally performed, by the SDPD, disclosed substantial errors, which errors are uncorrected, and a substantial portion of which are un-correctable, according to CA-DOJ protocols. Contemplate this. If initial impressions of race/ethnicity are immutable (as required by CA-DOJ RIPA rules) and local audits show that a person is entered into the stop database as a particular race but arrested or ticketed as another, what good is the local audit? The City of San Diego's data and audits disclose the foregoing; all actions (strategic errors) doubtless intended to diminish disparities. 

Since Field Interviews are a Bread and Butter enforcement tactic for the City of San Diego, which tactic is much more often used in minority-rich neighbourhoods, the failure to enter 17% of them doubtless is a strategic omission that tends to diminish disparities. AFAIK such omissions cannot be added or corrected. San Diego's data does not "not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of officer's work and conclusions.” It does not capture what went on in the street.

Fix the foolishness. All "errors" must be correctable; especially the intentional ones. Only the ignorant may be beguiled by propaganda. I do not intend to let the RIPA Board issue a single report (unchallenged) with data that I know, and that the City of San Diego disclosed, to be tainted; some of it intentionally.

Regrets.

Richard Hylton

Shame! Lies have their place; that place is not in deceptive communications to the public. Data Integrity has a meaning that is well known to David Ho of CJIS (He seems to have been put out to pasture. Too honest?)

Finally; I am not only involved in analyzing and making reports on raw data, I am a keen listener and seer too. On the basis of what I have heard and read, I fear that more than a few LEAs shall blame the CA-DOJ for their failures, which failures shall be cast as inability to provide accurate data; the natural consequence of being unable make correct dropdown-selections, or to make key-corrections.

Carry on.