Daniel Pham file clears cops, but raises questions about D.A. and Chief

The release of the 9-1-1 emergency recordings as well as police reports in the case of the police shooting death of Daniel Pham explains a lot of the police action, but raises an important question on the Police Chief’s and District Attorney’s sense of judgment: Why put the city through months of pain in resisting the publication of the documents and an opening of the grand jury proceedings?

Nothing frustrates more than the concealment of information, and when the recording and police reports can clarify so many things, why hold them back? The information was released only after numerous demands, a full City Council meeting that rejected the release, until a Rules and Open Government Committee finally agreed.

Now, obviously, all documents — all facts, all evidence, everything under the sun — can be interpreted in more than one way. True enough. But that’s no excuse for hiding them.

The information released by the San Jose Police Department consists of:

* Recording of the 9-1-1 call from a neighbor. After Daniel Pham (whose Vietnamese name is Sơn) stabbed his brother, the brother ran into the neighbor’s house, and the neighbor called 9-1-1. Click here to download the sound file.

* Recording of the 9-1-1 from the brother’s girlfriend, who had locked herself in the bedroom. This long 22-minute recording contains a lot of information, including sounds from outside that could be heard in the bedroom. Click here to download the audio. The Bolsavik is working on an annotated video of this recording.

* Recording of a call from a friend’s house asking when the family can come home. Click here to download the sound file.

* Recording of police dispatch. Click here to download the sound file (461 MB).

* Numerous police reports. Click here for the PDF.

* Computerized logs of the 9-1-1 transactions. Click here for the PDF.

* Transcripts of the recordings. Click here for the PDF.

* A police summary and synopsis of the data. The police wanted to release just this, nothing else. Click here for the PDF.

Among the questions that the documents have clarified, at least to the Bolsavik’s satisfaction:

* Daniel Pham was indeed a threat to just about everybody. You can hear the fear in the voice of his brother’s girlfriend, who had barricaded herself in the bedroom. Daniel even cut his own throat, then stood there with the bloody knife in one hand and a cigarette in the other, as his brother and the police yelled out for him to drop the knife. Instead, he walked toward the officers, raising the knife, and was shot.

In the audio with the brother’s girlfriend can be heard the sound of people yelling, “Put the knife down” – “Put the knife down” - “Get on the ground” – “He’s still holding the knife.”

* The 9-1-1 officer was told that perhaps Daniel has a mental illness. (“I don’t know, I think so” is what the brother’s girlfriend said).

(As already mentioned in a prior entry, the Bolsavik is not sure why people argue that Daniel’s mental illness is a factor in his favor. A mentally unstable man with a knife is just as dangerous as, or more dangerous than, a sane man.)

* Another 9-1-1 officer was told, by the neighbor, that Daniel was “high.”

* The brother told the police that Daniel had had a crack addiction problem, but he had been clean for a few years.

* Daniel’s father Vinh Pham and mother Lan Do (pictured above, by the Spartan Daily) were not near the scene. This fact would have explained why they were not asked to testify before the grand jury.

What’s not clear from the reports and recordings is exactly how many shots were fired, and whether that many shots were necessary.

The failure to release this information earlier, however, raises questions of credibility and coverup. If the reports had been released earlier, people are just much less likely to ask, “Is there anything else?” Plenty of other police departments in California release the reports, even though they are exempt from disclosure under the relevant California Government Code.

And if the grand jury proceedings had been public, the city would not have to go through the anxiety of not knowing whether the grand jury heard the whole truth. When the grand jury declined to indict anyone, it became very clear: The D.A.’s office did not want an indictment. The city then went through the pain of asking why: Was it because the evidence didn’t warrant an indictment? Or was it because D.A. Dolores Carr (pictured) was biased?

Santa Clara County grand jury investigations had been opened before, in the case of the police shooting death of Bich Cau Thi Tran.

At the end of the day, neither Police Chief Robert Davis nor District Attorney Carr appears to have done anything legally wrong. However, they were arrogant in thinking that they and they alone were capable of understanding what happened.

The Police Chief, in a cover letter to the released information, insists on warning that “information contained in the reports might not make sense to those unfamiliar with police tactics, operations, or the investigative process” — as if the taxpayers and voters of San Jose were incompetent to read his department’s work products.

The D.A. has said that she had a personal belief that grand jury proceedings in police shooting cases should not be public. Why is Carr’s personal belief more important than the credibility and trustworthiness of an entire police department?

So much grief caused by such stubborness. Hopefully, lesson learned.