San Mateo police launch data transparency webpage

Michael Haobsh, the police department’s public information officer, said that they hope the increased transparency will help rebuild trust, foster collaboration and promote community policing.

“At the end of the day, community policing is a collaborative effort. We need the community and just as equally the community needs us.” Haobsh said. “We could not police this community without their support.”

The page also provides links for people to submit public records requests, obtain police reports and view the department’s policies and training plans.

Haobsh said transparency and accountability have always been important to the department, and the death of George Floyd in 2020 prompted a lot of tough, emotional conversations that led the department to ramp up their transparency efforts.

Some of these included launching a police accountability webpage — which is separate from the data transparency webpage — and starting a talk series called “Real Talk San Mateo,” in which members of the police department chat virtually with various community groups and organizations.

With the data transparency page, the police department seeks to be a leader among law enforcement agencies. The dashboard has been in the works since last year and Haobsh said that a lot of time goes into reading reports, pulling data and then displaying it online.

For now, the dashboards show data from 2020. Data from 2021 will be added and updated quarterly, starting April 1.

The police department will also continue hosting the Real Talk San Mateo series and will host an open community forum on Feb. 24. Haobsh said they are grateful for support from the community and hope that their efforts can help “reduce the unknown” for people who may misunderstand the role of police.

“San Mateo is a phenomenal community,” he said. “Our citizens understand our function in government. They’re mostly very supportive of the police and we’re really grateful to have a community like that.” The data transparency webpage is available at https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4451/Data-Transparency. The police accountability web page is available at https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4331/Accountability.