Missing link
Police-museum story lacks a sense of history
By David Silva
Readers of San Diego City Councilmember Jim Madaffer’s Mission Times Courier are probably aware of a new San Diego Police museum—the paper just ran a big story on it.
What those readers might not know is the 4,000-square-foot collection of police history isn’t new at all: It’s just the latest incarnation of a museum with a long and troubled history all its own. But, for reasons unknown, nowhere in the Times Courier’s 1,200-word story Friday is that history mentioned.
In fact, the story by Times Courier reporter Drew Spence seems to go out of its way to avoid describing the museum, which opens—or re-opens—its doors Wednesday, Dec. 3, as anything but brand-spanking new.
“Despite the years of service that San Diego Police has brought to the city, the department has never before had a place to house a viable museum,” Spence writes. “Yet that is about to change. For eight years, the San Diego Police Historical Association has been finalizing plans to give the department a full museum complete with exhibits and artifacts about the history of San Diego and its police force.”
Left unwritten in the story was the rather important detail that the San Diego Police Historical Association already had a place to house the artifacts—it just wasn’t a viable location. The museum first opened in 2001 inside a Downtown building on G Street. The office doubled as a community police storefront. When the association lost its lease at the location in 2005, the collection—including historic police documents, uniforms and rare photos dating back to the 1800s—were packed into boxes and moved to an association member’s home, where they remained for three years.
“We were in storage until about eight months ago,” says Richard Carlson, president of the association’s board of directors and a retired San Diego Police detective. “We were able to raise the money to re-open through contributions from the public and from fund-raising events.”
Carlson, a former hostage negotiator and author of a book on the many suicide notes he came across during his 35 years on the force, led the effort to resurrect the museum. When it opens Dec. 3 at its new venue, inside the College Area Library building at 4710 College Ave., the museum will be five times larger than the original and include numerous new exhibits. Among them is a display focusing on Percy Benbough and Jerry Sanders (yes, the Jerry Sanders), the only people to have served as both police chief and mayor of San Diego. The museum is free and open to the public.
But none of this clears up the mystery of why the Mission Times Courier—owned by Madaffer and his wife, Sally Ortega Madaffer—utterly failed to mention the museum’s history in its seemingly in-depth story. Madaffer had to have known about it, and Sally, editor and publisher of the publication, certainly should have known about it.
Calls to the paper for enlightenment were unreturned as of press time.
Published: 12/02/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
There is only one history of the SDPD I am interested in and that is the history of not finding it's officers guilty of any criminal actions when they are involved in questionable in-custody homicides. Neither the DA or the SDPD deem it justifiable to ever say an officer does anything criminal. The DA is extremely reluctant to file charges against an officer. To make matters even worst there is virtually no transparency into the history and actions of the officers involved in what really constitutes getting away with murder. I am not asking anyone to take my word for this conclusion but I am asking that one research officer involved in-custody deaths. I ask the city treasurer to post the dollar amount paid out to settle the last five years of claims against the SDPD. The DA refuses to prosecute officers for criminal actions but woe be unto any citizen that sneezes wrong.