San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia announced this week he will retire at the end of this year after spending nearly three decades with the department, rising from a narcotics officer to become the top cop of the Bay Area’s largest city.
Garcia, 49, planned to announce his retirement in late June, but those plans were shelved when the pandemic took hold of the Bay Area in March and historic protests erupted in San Jose and other cities across the nation following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
“Obviously, the end of June was a very tumultuous time, and I didn’t feel it was the right time dealing with shelter in place and the fallout of protests,” Garcia told The Chronicle in an interview Tuesday, a day after his announcement. “But as the weeks went by, I just made up my mind that there is no good time to make an announcement such as this.”
Garcia leaves the department at a critical juncture. The city’s department faced criticism for its use of force during protests — tear gas and other projectiles injured numerous protesters — and the department has launched in
internal investigation into racist messages allegedly shared by current and former officers. Meanwhile, critics are calling for systemic reforms nationwide in policing and the defunding of police budgets.
Garcia acknowledged Tuesday that incidents of police brutality and systemic racism within law enforcement have shown that more reforms are needed in the coming months and years, and his department still has work to do.
“It’s not just perception, we need officers to police themselves and we need to find better ways to make that happen,” he said.
San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia tells a crowd of reporters on Friday that a San Jose patrol officer fired at least one bullet that struck and killed the man who took a UPS driver hostage inside his truck, forced the driver to flee from police and sheriff’s deputies on a chase across San Jose, and then led a standoff for more than an hour on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019.
Photo: Lauren Hernandez / The Chronicle 2019
Garcia said he announced his retirement months in advance to give the city time to conduct a search for a permanent chief rather than appointing someone on an interim basis.
Born in Puerto Rico, Garcia moved to San Jose with his mother when he was 5 and spoke almost no English. He joined the force in 1992 and advanced to the level of assistant chief in 2013 before succeeding Larry Esquivel as police chief in 2016.
Garcia’s tenure as chief got off to a rocky start, when a protest outside a June 2016 campaign rally for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in San Jose devolved into violent street fights. Trump supporters filed a lawsuit naming Garcia and Mayor Sam Liccardo as co-defendants, and police were accused of not stepping in to stop assaults. A judge dismissed the allegations against Garcia, and the city later settled the suit.
More recently, Garcia’s officers were accused of using excessive force in trying to disperse protesters in June as demonstrations continued in the weeks following Floyd’s killing.
“In 2016, we handled the Trump rally and the criticism was we didn’t do enough. Then this year we handled these protests, and the criticism was we did too much,” Garcia said. “We’re going to look at our tactics and we’re going to see how we could improve.”
Garcia’s accomplishments as chief include restocking the ranks after a controversial pension reform plan passed in 2012, leading to an officer exodus and plummeting morale.
San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia announces retirement after 28 years with the force
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