Last week we showed you Kirstens
Holmes investigation into recently
released police misconduct reports.
They showed incidents of racism,
discrimination, racial profiling
and excessive force in the San
Diego Police Department ranks.
Kirsten is joining us tonight to talk
more about why these incidents are just
coming to light now, trying to give us
more transparency and law enforcement.
And that has continued to grow
across the country for years now.
So Kirsten, let's begin by
backing up just a little bit.
That's why these incidents
are just now coming to light.
That's a really good question.
OK, so we gotta start with SB16.
It was a law that says starting January 1st.
Its purpose is to hold law
enforcement agencies accountable.
This is SB16, and we're supposed to
hold them accountable through this law.
They're supposed to release the report,
misconduct reports.
And once we got a hold of those
misconduct reports, a lot of the
incidents we saw were concerning.
So we reached out to San Diego's
Black Officer Association,
San Diego Police Union and
San Diego Police Department.
We did this for weeks and we
got no comment on that story.
So these misconduct records
being brought to the public.
That's good news,
but there's still a lot more to talk about,
and the public deserves to hear how
this is being addressed moving forward.
OK, so that was looking back.
We're we're talking about the
allegations that were in your report,
but now there are new allegations,
and there is, in fact,
a new lawsuit against the
San Diego Police Department.
Can you tell us about
that? Absolutely.
So we got to talk about Arthur Scott.
He's a black San Diego police
officer who worked for the
department for more than 25 years.
He is now suing the department,
saying that he was retaliated
against more than once for
reporting incidents of racism.
So one of those incidents was
included in our original reporting.
You can see it on your screen right now.
This is a cut out of rapper
Rick Ross with money asking
officers to sign up for overtime.
But there's something else
I have to show you here too.
We have another disturbing image.
Through Scott's lawsuit,
we were able to find out about an
old SDPD training video that shows
the department's first black officer,
Frank Mccarter, in a cartoon.
You see him there.
He was drawn as an ape chasing
after Chinese men.
Pretty disturbing stuff there.
OK,
so we've heard from Arthur
Scott before. I remember we have covered
his case, some prior allegations.
Why is he now filing a second lawsuit?
And what does he hoping again by
bringing these incidents to life?
Yeah, OK. So again,
this is not his first lawsuit.
He has sued before.
He sued back in 2015 for what he
believed was retaliation after he
reported a locker room depiction of
then President Obama as an African
tribal chief and that training cartoon.
We just showed you of San Diego Police
Department's first black officer.
Now, in that lawsuit,
Scott was not awarded any financial damages.
But San Diego police did stop
using that racist cartoon from
1909 in their training,
which Scott said in a 2017 interview.
That was a win.
Now, the new lawsuit alleges that Scott
was then retaliated against and demoted.
So we're learning a lot.
There's these new allegations and
new lawsuit, your investigation.
You're following up.
What's next for us here?
All right. So we want to move this forward.
The findings from SB16 show there's
a lot of work left to be done.
We would love the opportunity for Chief
Miss Light to come and sit down and
talk with me or any of the staff here
at CBS8 working on this story so that
we can move this conversation forward.
We know that in recent years San Diego
Police Department has implemented
policies to become more diverse.
But we need to hear from Chief Nez
light about his efforts to address
these problems because this is pretty
important to the black and brown community
and really all of San Diego now.
We did reach out to San Diego police.
Again, for comment on this new lawsuit,
specifically Scott's lawsuit,
their statement to us is on your
screen right now.
It says quote,
when the San Diego Police Department
is made aware of a criminal
investigation by a law enforcement
agency against one of our officers,
SDPD generally removes the officer
from the field pending the outcome
of the criminal and any other
administrative investigation.
That's their response to why he has now
been reassigned after the first lawsuit.
Exactly. That's their response to that.
Now we also. Reached out to the city
Attorney's office on this matter.
Again, they don't comment
on pending litigation.
That's an answer we expected.
And if you want more of our original
reporting from what we found on SB16,
we have that for you.
It's on our website, cbs8.com.
You can click on that story for
details about this news lawsuit,
this new lawsuit.
We also have that online for you at cbs8.com.
Again, these are stories we're going
to continue to follow for you as they
develop and keep our audiences aware.
And just want to clarify, Arthur
Scott still works for the department.
Arthur. That still works for the department.
There was conversation about
how does he still work there?
He's had a lawsuit and
now there's another one.
So we are gonna sit back and
wait and find out what happens.
Obviously believes in his cause
and what he's saying here.
The invitation is out for Chief
News Light. Please call us.
We'd like to talk to you.
Thank you. Thanks.