VIEW ORIGINAL ARTICLE: San Francisco Public Press – SFPD Training for Responding to ICE Activity Is Sparse, Records Show
Internal police training instructs San Francisco officers to consider how to respond if a person being detained strikes an Immigration Customs and Enforcement agent with a hammer. But the department offers no specific guidance on how to intervene, if at all, when ICE agents use force on civilians.
Arrests by ICE have increased sharply under the Trump administration. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in early September that agents in Los Angeles may stop people for appearing Latino or speaking Spanish, which immigration experts described as “effectively legalized racial profiling.”
As federal agents detain more immigrants in San Francisco, and activists protest and sometimes intervene in arrests, records shed light on the limited training that local police receive to address at times volatile confrontations. Accounts of SFPD officers looking on as ICE agents injured protesters and pointed a rifle at a reporter sparked questions from the public and city legislators about how officers should act in these situations, when they are barred from hindering enforcement of federal law but also prohibited by sanctuary city ordinances from assisting with immigration enforcement.
Yet scenarios given in a San Francisco police training document obtained by the Public Press lack clear guidance for the tricky position local officers might be in if ICE agents use excessive force or harm members of the public, which is what officers should be trained to respond to, said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project.
The training focuses on the safety of the ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents, as opposed to public safety, she said.
When local police are seen standing by as federal agencies damage communities, it can deepen distrust of local law enforcement long after federal personnel leave, said Donny Walters, executive director of the Ethical Society of Police, a St. Louis police union founded by African American police officers to address race-based discrimination and to advocate nationally for policing reforms.
“We’re left to deal with the carnage,” he said. “I can see why the citizens in the community of San Francisco are looking at the police, they’re saying, ‘You’re supposed to protect us. You’re supposed to be here for us, but yet you’re standing here, not doing anything.’”
Asked for a response to these comments, the department shared a memo it issued in August prohibiting officers from assisting federal immigration authorities except in emergencies.
Training scenarios
The Public Press obtained a brief presentation from the Police Department describing how members can comply with sanctuary city policies.
The undated PowerPoint outlines how police are and are not allowed to assist ICE, offering two hypotheticals officers might encounter: a potential detainee striking an ICE agent with a hammer and ICE agents requesting help arresting suspected gang members also believed to be undocumented immigrants.
“There really is this kind of underlying assumption that the kind of people that ICE agents are targeting are violent or criminal,” Bonds said, noting that many of the people being detained and deported by ICE have minimal or no criminal histories.
The training slides do not indicate the correct response in the given scenario. The department did not respond to inquiries regarding who had been trained in what time frame using the presentation, or what response trainees were told is correct.
Safeguarding life and property
In an August department memo, interim Chief of Police Paul Yep instructed police to “only take actions necessary to safeguard life and property,” such as rendering aid, responding to crime, directing traffic or deescalating conflict.
Bonds said the memo provides more comprehensive guidance than what many police agencies in sanctuary cities give their officers, and acknowledged that local police can face legal liability for interfering with immigration enforcement. However, she also noted that there are ways to deescalate a situation that do not entail preventing an ICE agent from making an arrest, and ways for officers to report unlawful conduct after an arrest to make sure it is tracked and addressed.
Officers also have an obligation under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to intervene if they see excessive force and could face civil liability for not doing so, which might be a helpful scenario to include in training, she said.
Walters noted that local police might not be allowed to intervene in certain instances, as federal authority supersedes local authority, but he described what is happening in many American cities today as “strong-arming” by the federal government where local authorities did not request input.
The Police Department’s memo came in response to a nonbinding resolution the Board of Supervisors issued in July asking the department to come up with a protocol for responding to calls about ICE raids. The department responded with its procedures nearly six weeks later.
Potential free speech violations
Allegations regarding local police conduct at protests this summer raise questions about the adequacy of the city’s current directives and training, said Chessie Thacher, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
The organization has fielded an uptick in requests for assistance from protesters in San Francisco reporting potential free speech violations. The organization has heard accounts of San Francisco police injuring protesters when using serious force, as well as arresting people who tried to comply with dispersal orders. Thacher called these reports very concerning.
Law enforcement should not be reacting to verbal criticism or protest by intimidating people exercising their free speech rights, including threatening people with arrest, aiming weapons at, arresting, detaining, or using force on them, said David Loy, director of legal services at the First Amendment Coalition. However, he noted that people do not have a legal right to obstruct police as they carry out their duties and can be arrested for doing so.
