San Antonio Police Officers Association President Danny Diaz is retiring from the force after more than 30 years at the San Antonio Police Department. He’s spent the past five years as a union leader.
Over the coming months, San Antonio will see several major leadership and policy changes, with longtime SAPD Chief William McManus set to retire in September, a new district attorney set to be elected in the November election and stalled police union contract negotiations still looming over City Hall.
The changes come as city leaders continue debating police hiring, staffing and the future of policing in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities — all while San Antonio prepares to confront budget cuts and potential tax and utility rate increases.
During Diaz’s tenure, SAPOA navigated some of the most politically turbulent years for policing in recent memory, including debates over police reform, collective bargaining, staffing and public accountability following the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd.
In a conversation with the San Antonio Report, Diaz discussed the state of SAPOA and SAPD, frustrations among rank-and-file officers, the upcoming district attorney democratic runoff race, the search for San Antonio’s next police chief and what he believes officers need as the city continues to grow.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you think the biggest challenge facing rank-and-file officers in San Antonio is today?
Morale is the biggest thing you know, we’ve had a lot of issues that we’re trying to fix. There’s a lot of things going on in the department and the mentality of doing more with less, needs to come to a stop, because we’ve been doing that for decades.
Our membership needs to know that the department, city council and the city’s legal department has our back, because the feeling is not that way right now. There’s things to work on, I think with the new transition for a chief, is going to make a difference and so we’ll see how that goes. Whoever it may be.
Nationally, law enforcement agencies have spent several years under increased public scrutiny and reform discussions, while cities in Texas have somewhat increased funding for departments. From your perspective, how has the relationship between officers and the community changed during your tenure?
It’s gotten tremendously better. When I first started (with the union), five and a half years ago, there was a disconnect between police officers and the community. There was no dialogue.
When I first started (on the force) — I’m going to show my age here. In 1991, I was able to talk to people when I had a call. I could spend an extra 10-15 minutes talking with them and you get to know people and in that they know you’re there for them. And they also get you information that’s needed to help keep that little area safe.
Lately, its officers are going call to call to call. They don’t have the ability to do that. It makes a big difference when we go out as the association, get out to the community through our nonprofit, and be there for them and be visible and just have conversations.
Chief William McManus is retiring in September, what kind of police chief do officers want next? And what qualities do you think are most important in his replacement?
San Antonio is different from other cities. Bringing in a chief from the outside, that’s not going to know how this department works, how this city functions, in my opinion would not work.
We’re the most diverse city, in my opinion, in the United States, other than Los Angeles. But it’s got its different quirks to it. We need somebody from inside, someone that knows, and that’ll be a big piece of their tenure as a chief to make the changes which would be best for the membership, the department itself and the community.
Officers will be able to do their jobs compared to now, where they’re being handcuffed at times, and a lot of that comes from city hall. It’s kind of hard when some council members do not want to hire more officers. But then, in the same conversation, same day, same council meeting, they want another 50 SAFFE officers for their own district. Well, you don’t want to hire, but you want, however, many more, SAFFE officers. How? What’s the expectation? How do you do that without somebody paying a price? Are we going to take them from patrol, then the community suffers? Are we going to take them from detectives, to where investigation suffers, and then the community suffers on the back end because they can’t do their work?
Whoever they choose, needs to have an open mind and listen to their officers, because what’s happening now is that no one listens. They don’t listen to the officers that actually do the work. There’s ideas that come down, ideas that are implemented, but no one asks the people that actually do the work, from officers to detectives, if it’s feasible. Or if it’s even something that will help not only the officers doing their job, but also the community.
Collective bargaining negotiations have paused for now. What do you think needs to happen in the next police contract to improve retention and stabilize the department long term?
As far as stability is concerned, if you pay the officers, what’s comparable to other cities, we’re able to compete. And as far as bringing in new recruits, would be able to retain a lot of people that are leaving.
When I came on, it was, everyone knew it was a career. You stayed, you know, 30 years plus. Now, some guys are leaving in two, three or five years. And that was unheard of back then, and it’s like nothing now. So that’s a big difference, and one of the main goals that we need to deal with.
And I know that the city would like to get it done by the end of the month. I thought we could have gotten it done by Fiesta, but we came prepared and I don’t think the other side was, which is OK, because I know there’s other things going on, but we’re down to where we need to get things situated and get it done for both sides, and I think we’re very close.
There’s been a lot of debate over staffing levels and whether SAPD has enough officers to keep up with growth and call volume. Do you believe SAPD is understaffed right now, and if so, how serious is the problem?
We still don’t have enough officers to be able to police correctly. And what I mean by that is there’s not a whole lot of proactive work we’re doing.
Basically, the way the department has been and the way the direction has been from city hall is that we’re just report writers, what I mean by that is we handle what comes in. We’re not actively out looking, or we don’t have big enough units, or enough officers going out and trying to find guns and narcotics and things of that sort to deter them. We’re never going to stop things of that nature, we just need to deter it a lot better than what we’re doing now, and having more officers we would be able to do that.
How has the politics surrounding policing changed over the course of your time both in City Hall and in the community?
When I came in, we were having to deal with two propositions, one was to take away collective bargaining for the civil services, and the other was allowing people to steal from businesses up to $1,500 without any type of disciplinary actions.
From the beginning I knew it was going to be hard, because there was animosity between my predecessor and the previous city manager, and it took a lot of hard work to be able to change that dialogue and have a dialogue with City Hall and with the police chief, which we have now.
I think the politicians know now that we’re not the greedy bastards that we’ve been portrayed to be in a certain book by a previous city manager. We are here to work with them and it’s made things better in the sense that we are talking and we are communicating and both sides understand that it’s not just about one side. It’s about three: the membership, the community and the city.
How do officers view the district attorney Democratic runoff between candidates Luz Elena Chapa and Jane Davis?
We endorsed Luz Elena Chapa for a reason, she’s no nonsense and looks at both sides. And the thing is, she sees the horrible job that Joe Gonzalez has done. There’s no consequences for anybody right now and that’s difficult. All you have to do is look at the amount of prosecutors that left during his tenure that were not allowed to do their work. With Chapa, you will see that families will be happier that the individuals committing crimes go through the process, and that justice will be served or played out and I think that she’ll do a tremendous job at the helm doing that.
It’s going back to basics. If you commit a crime, you have to expect that you’re going to pay in one way, shape or form, whether it’s deferred adjudication or whether it’s probation or time in jail, and not just all cases being dropped or deferred.
She’s going to hold people’s feet to the fire and let them go through the justice system and let the justice system decide the punishment.
Jane Davis works for Joe Gonzalez; she has the same mindset. So if she wins and is the district attorney, then we expect no changes, and the community should expect that people are just going to get away with crimes and not have any discipline at all whatsoever when they commit crimes. So it will stay status quo.
Some might argue that police unions have too much political influence, especially in local races involving criminal justice. How do you respond to that criticism?
It’s funny, because some of those critics do the same thing on the other side. It’s to make people think differently, or just to make individuals think that we’re trying to take advantage or get an advantage in one way, shape or form.
From our standpoint, we don’t listen to what other people say. We’re bipartisan, and what we do is we pick the best candidate that is there for whichever seat that it is, and this time around, we feel that Luz Chapa is the best candidate for that seat, which is right, not only by our membership, but by this community.
When people look back on your leadership at SAPOA, what do you hope both officers and the public remember about you?
I hope the officers know that it wasn’t about me, it was about the membership, and that that was my thought process, I never forgot where I came from and that was the way that I worked, and had our committees work toward. It’s about the membership.
And as far as the community. I would hope that they would see how we worked hard, not only to do things for them as a community, but that we kept an open mind and worked with the city council, with the administration, to make the city better and safer for them. We strive for that right? It was never about us as individuals, it was about everyone else.
