San Diego police have teamed up with other law enforcement agencies by participating on 13 federal task forces so far this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The San Diego Police Department provided Voice of San Diego a list on Friday afternoon following our story that they refused to provide information<\/a>. San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera is proposing an ordinance on Monday that would bar officers from teaming up with federal agencies on certain task forces.<\/p>\n The list details 13 federal task forces SDPD was a part of including a fentanyl abatement strike team, narcotics task force, joint terrorism task force and more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A spokesperson provided a response to the article we published Friday morning.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs the article was originally portrayed, SDPD did not provide comment because we did not want to get ahead of the discussion on the proposed ordinance at City Council,\u201d said spokesperson Ashley Nicholes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTask forces are used for a number of reasons that greatly benefit public safety on issues like human trafficking, narcotics, and people preying on children online just to name a few. Collaboration between law enforcement agencies help us coordinate resources that one agency alone wouldn\u2019t have. We look forward to continued work on task forces that keeps San Diego one of the safest big cities in the nation.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n State law does not require law enforcement agencies<\/a> to share their task force participation publicly. They are required to report that information to the Department of Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the police department is not required to make that information public, Nicholes wrote that they, \u201care committed to transparency and will look into how information related to our task forces could be posted for the public that would not interfere with their operations.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n