San Diego's New Police Chief Has Had No Time to Savor Dream Job

Scott Wahl had one objective: to become San Diego police chief and lead the department where his father, Michael Wahl, had served as an officer for decades.

“It’s always been my goal, really if I’m being honest,” Wahl said, acknowledging the outsized ambition.

“Everybody kind of laughed, but that was what my dream was growing up,” he said. “My high school buddy still makes fun of me to this day.”

“I always took assignments and roles that kind of helped me prepare for this role,” he said.

In June, 26 years after officially joining the department, Wahl achieved his goal when he replaced Chief David Nisleit as head of the police force for the nation’s eighth-largest city.

But Wahl, sitting in his office at San Diego police headquarters, framed by windows that look out on the city’s downtown, said he has had little time to appreciate obtaining his life’s goal.

In an interview with the Union-Tribune, Wahl reflected on his first six months as head of the department and looked toward the changes it will face in the coming year.

Following his inauguration, Wahl was faced with the death of an officer in the line of duty, a high-profile double homicide in downtown and the subsequent shooting of the suspect by Harbor Police in Little Italy, and the use of a police dog on an unarmed man that drew sharp criticism.

And he undertook a reorganization of the department’s top brass that saw two assistant chiefs demoted almost immediately after he took office.

“Because I’ve been focusing on this role for so long, I’ve been watching and learning and taking notes, and I knew that the system that we’d had had run its course,” he said.

For Wahl, the previous structure was rife with inefficiencies with some assistant chiefs having a dozen direct reports and others having only one or two.

The department was “slow to respond” to needed changes, Wahl said.

Wahl said the new system has streamlined the operational process: responsibilities like logistics, which had been under the purview of multiple people, were consolidated under one person.

And Wahl has added more civilians to the top of the department, in roles that oversee finance and communications, “so that I’m not just surrounded by law enforcement professionals,” he said.

The department’s annual budget is more than $600 million, the largest city expenditure.

“Many decisions have been refined because finance has been in the decision-making processes,” he said.

In August, just two months into Wahl’s tenure, in the midst of the departmental reorganization, Officer Austin Machitar was killed in the line of duty during a pursuit.

“That was obviously my biggest fear, taking this role,” he said.

“I just prayed and hoped that it didn’t happen on my watch. My goal was to try to get everybody home safely,” he said. “But that’s not the way it turned out.”

The incident occurred so soon after taking office that Wahl said he “didn’t have any time to think about it.”

“I knew (Machitar),” he said. “He’d sent me a text message when I became chief, congratulating me.”

At the time of the collision, a revamped Commission on Police Practices had been examining the department’s pursuit practices in light of multiple incidents, including one that had killed two young boys.

A few months after the incident that killed Machitar, the commission recommended to Wahl a host of changes to the department’s pursuit policies that would restrict when and how officers can initiate pursuits.

It is the first set of recommendations Wahl is considering from the commission. He is not required to adopt any suggested changes.

“I understand the recommendations that the commission has put forward,” he said, “but I also have to balance those recommendations with making sure that we don’t over-leverage public safety.

“This is a dangerous job,” he said. “We all know it.”

One of the recommended changes put forth by the commission would prohibit, in most circumstances, pursuits for suspected infractions or misdemeanors.

“It might sound good in theory, but in practice, how do you do that?” Wahl said.

He pointed to the driver of the BMW that fled from one officer and soon after struck Machitar’s police cruiser.

“This car, he almost hits the police car and takes off at a high rate of speed,” the chief said.

There is a pursuit and “20 seconds later we have a dead police officer.”

“At what point do you exercise that theory of ‘no pursuits?’” he said.

However, Wahl admitted that the department is deficient in tracking when pursuits are terminated.

“One of the recommendations is that we collect better data, and I completely agree,” he said.

Pursuits are not the only issue the commission is set to examine, with Wahl likely to face multiple sets of recommendations on pretext stops, in which a person is stopped by police for a minor violation with police looking to investigate a more serious crime, and protest policies.

The commission also recently held an informational session on the use of police dogs following an incident in which an unarmed man was arrested after being bit multiple times by a police dog.

Wahl appeared at the meeting during which members of the public criticized the department for its handling of the incident and others, including a fatal police shooting.

“I’m there to understand where people are coming from, right or wrong,” he said. “If I can understand…how they are perceiving our actions and our efforts, then I feel like we can have a better middle ground on improvement.”

In the coming year, Wahl will also be navigating a major policy change with the passage of Proposition 36, which creates more severe penalties for offenses such as shoplifting and possession of hard drugs, plus a new presidential administration that has taken aim at undocumented immigrants.

President-elect Donald Trump said he hopes to undertake a massive deportation plan that would include the participation of police departments.

“It is absolutely critical for public safety to allow a safe environment for people to be able to report crime…without fear of their immigration status being a barrier,” Wahl said.

“It’s important that we uphold that,” he said.

He said the department would abide by SB 54 which limits law enforcement agencies from participating in immigration enforcement. He said he has no plans “to change our policy.”

But Wahl noted that the department should also “stay right in the middle” regarding the highly divisive issue.

“There’s a lot of rhetoric out there that I don’t pay any attention to,” he said.

Regarding, Proposition 36, Wahl is more complimentary: “I think Prop. 36 is going to go a long way toward helping correct the things that Prop. 47 created.”

The new law, which took effect earlier this month, will “greatly improve our ability” to get people arrested for drug possession into mandated treatment.

“I’m very excited to see that,” he said.

____________

Visit sandiegouniontribune.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.