San José’s Police Watchdog Report Shows Complaints, Uses of Force Increased
San José’s independent police auditor said its office continues to be “kept in the dark” when it comes to receiving critical information in the immediate aftermath of police shootings, due to a city and police directive barring the auditor from shooting scenes.
In a change since the beginning of the year, the auditor’s office has altogether stopped sending staff to the places where investigations are happening after officers have fired their weapons because their “presence at the scene provides no meaningful additional information,” Interim Independent Police Auditor Dwight White wrote in the office’s annual oversight report for 2025.
The annual report was released this week, showing that complaints against officers steadily increased in 2024 and 2025 after dipping from 2021 through 2023, and that the number of times officers used force bumped up slightly over 2024.
The report, which was presented to the City Council on Tuesday, includes a dozen recommendations from White’s office on how the San José Police Department should improve its work, all of which the department agreed with or partially agreed to implement. But near the top of the report, White reiterated concerns about the exclusion from police shooting scenes.
“The IPA is not granted access to the scene, nor does it have access to the briefing or walkthrough. The IPA is kept in the dark and completely out of the process,” the report said.
San José Mayor Matt Mahan and the whole council, along with Police Chief Paul Joseph, citing concerns about the integrity of police investigation scenes, rejected former auditor Eddie Aubrey’s recommendation to grant the office such access during an annual review last year.
At the time, Aubrey told the council that other major cities in the Bay Area and the state allow for that kind of real-time observation to ensure independent oversight is thorough, and told The Mercury News he considered the recommendation “low-hanging fruit.”
In an interview this week, White said the lack of access means San José is “kind of lacking” in contrast to cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento and Long Beach, among others.
“I’m not sure why that isn’t the standard” in San José, White said. He said his office simply gets a phone briefing from police officials under current practice.
“If we can convince the City Council that it’s important to get access to the scene maybe next year or further down the road, we’ll definitely look into those options,” he said.
Sean Allen, the president of the San José/Silicon Valley NAACP, and a former county correctional officer, told the council at the meeting they should reconsider.
“What we have now is not oversight. When we talk to the community groups, we’re not happy with what we presently have in terms of [White’s] access to things. So we’d appreciate it if you guys would relook at that kind of stuff. The access needs to be changed in terms of how we do oversight,” Allen said.
The continued lack of access to those scenes is coupled with what White said are frequent delays in police handing over completed internal investigations of other instances when officers seriously injure someone. In some cases, the completed investigations weren’t handed over at all, until the auditor discovered them and inquired with police.
Collectively, the delays and inconsistent information sharing hamper the ability of the auditor’s office to closely review the “circumstances leading to the force, the actions of the officers and subject, or whether the investigation’s factual and policy conclusions are supported by the evidence,” the report said.
Among the recommendations from White’s office are a call to implement a written policy requiring SJPD to provide the IPA’s office with every completed investigation stemming from police seriously injuring or shooting someone within 30 days after the department has completed its review.
In response to the recommendation, Police Chief Paul Joseph told the council the department recently switched from “paper copies” to new digital software for its internal affairs work, which has “sped up the processing of the information and the provision of that information to the IPA.”
In 2025 overall, the city’s police officers used force on people 598 times, an increase of about 5% over 2024, and the fourth consecutive annual increase after a low in 2021, the report said.
White’s report showed that officers received 499 complaints overall in 2025, including complaints from community members and those initiated by the department.
Of those complaints, 326 of them were from community members concerning an officer’s conduct, continuing an upward trend from 263 in 2024, after a recent low of 224 in 2023.
“This recent uptick could reflect renewed public concern, increased willingness to report, or emerging challenges in police-community interactions that warrant closer attention,” the report said.
A total of 370 officers on the force in 2025 received at least one complaint, or roughly 36% of active officers, which is an increase from 30% of officers in 2024 who received at least one complaint, and 27% who received a complaint in 2023. In 2022, about 33% of officers received at least one.
One officer led the department with seven separate complaints during 2025, the report said. Four other officers had five complaints, and nine others had four complaints.
Officers with two to six years of experience had the highest complaint rates, with more than 50% of those officers receiving a complaint, while about 23% of officers with 11 to 15 years of experience received complaints, according to the report.
While the office tracks complaints by calendar year, the cases it reviews and closes each year can contain complaints from differing years.
In cases the office reviewed and closed in 2025, the IPA investigated 942 separate allegations of police misconduct, with about 11% of those allegations sustained, “confirming some wrongdoing or misconduct occurred.”
The large majority of the allegations, 74%, were characterized as “unfounded,” in which the evidence didn’t support the claim, or “exonerated,” meaning the conduct likely happened, “but the police officer’s actions were found to be within policy, highlighting the complexity of policing and the potential for misperception,” the report said.
The IPA’s report also recommended the department should “explicitly prohibit the use of profanity or disparaging language as a routine control tactic.” In four cases reviewed by the auditor’s office, “officers repeatedly used profanity, especially variations of ‘shut the fuck up’ as a method they described as ‘de-escalation’,” the report said.
“Officers defended this language as a tactic to ‘shock,’ ‘snap’ or reassert control over individuals who were argumentative or talkative. That rationale itself is problematic. Profanity and disparaging language should not be treated as legitimate control techniques, especially when they escalate tension or serve no clear operational purpose,” the report said.
A police department memo said the current policy prohibits officers “from using coarse, profane or derogatory language with a very narrow exception for “when necessary to establish control during a violent or dangerous situation.”
Joseph, in his comments to the council, said a new policy isn’t needed because officers can be and already are disciplined for foul language in the wrong circumstances.
“It is not an approved standard de-escalation technique. There are rare occasions. And look, if an officer’s going to swear at somebody and it’s going to prevent them from using force, then you know what, I’d rather have them do that,” Joseph said.
Joseph declined an interview request for this story. He told the council many of the policy changes based on the recommendations were already being made and should be complete by February.
“We’re always trying to be better. We appreciate the IPA’s partnership in making us better and holding us accountable,” Joseph said.
White took over as the interim auditor following Aubrey’s sudden and unexplained exit from the city.
Aubrey, who was hired as the city’s new IPA in May 2024, was placed on administrative leave with no explanation in August of this year. The city announced his retirement the following week, without any statement from Aubrey, who also did not return calls or texts seeking comment.
Aubrey was lauded as an experienced leader at the time of his appointment by the City Council, which followed a period of tumult and staff turnover at the office, following the unexpected retirement of former auditor Shivaun Nurre in June 2023. She stepped down after getting into a verbal argument with a San José police officer at the San José Greek Festival while she was drunk.