By Robert Salonga
Bay Area News Group
SAN JOSE, Calif. — After a broad and quiet search, San Jose is elevating acting Police Chief Paul Joseph to the full-time job following a closed-session vote by the City Council on Tuesday, officials said.
Joseph, who has spent 30 years with the San Jose Police Department, has been serving as the agency’s interim leader since April, when Anthony Mata retired after his own three-decade run to become chief of investigations at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
“I’m incredibly excited to be offered this job and to move forward with this department,” Joseph said in an interview Tuesday. “I love the city, I love this community, and I love the men and women that work at the San Jose Police Department. I’m eager to build on the work that we’ve done the last three-and-a-half years … and there’s much more to be done.”
The appointment of Joseph marks the fourth time since 2011 that an acting chief has landed the permanent job. The one exception in that stretch was Mata, who was appointed in 2021 after being promoted from the rank of deputy chief.
Joseph was Mata’s assistant chief after ascending from captain to become the department’s second-in-command. He joined the police department in 1994 after two-and-a-half years as an officer in San Mateo. In San Jose, he worked patrol, narcotics enforcement, SWAT duty and robbery investigations. As a sergeant, he supervised patrol officers and field training, and as a lieutenant, he was a leader in the robbery and homicide divisions.
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City Manager Jennifer Maguire, who presented Joseph’s selection to the council, lauded him as “having the leadership and experience to do this job on day one.”
Joseph’s six-plus months as interim chief has seen him call attention to a spike in shootings targeting police, including an incident in May that wounded two officers, and preside over the memorial of the city’s first community service officer — a police-adjacent position — killed in the line of duty.
“I have seen Paul Joseph stand by injured officers during their worst moments, stand firm when our community is threatened and stand up to take responsibility for our department — in good times and bad,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement. “He is exactly the person we need to help rebuild our ranks, test innovative new approaches and ensure the people of San Jose are safe and protected.”
Joseph’s appointment continues a nearly 50-year streak of internal or homegrown police veterans to take the helm of SJPD, which has not seen a true outsider named chief since department icon Joe McNamara in 1976. William Landsdowne might be the closest instance when he became chief in 1998 after serving as the top cop in Richmond, but he built his police career working in San Jose.
Steve Slack, president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, said Joseph’s selection was “a wise decision by our city leaders.”
“Chief Joseph brings a wealth of experience, innovative ideas and a collaborative nature to a department he knows inside and out,” Slack said in a statement.
Other city leaders voiced support for the chief selection, including District 10 Councilmember Arjun Batra, who said he is “confident that in Paul Joseph I have a great partner who will help make our community, neighborhoods and district safer.” District 7 Councilmember Bien Doan said it was “a great choice to choose someone who knows about the city of San Jose, who knows about the culture, who knows about the problems that we have and has been working to address those issues.”
The city’s process to find Mata’s successor was relatively low profile. Since Mata announced his retirement from SJPD in January, the city conducted a national search for chief candidates, a process that in recent history has produced mixed results.
For instance, during the search that ended with Mata’s selection, several out-of-state police figures were part of the city’s public candidate list, but they were not considered serious contenders. A national search to replace Chris Moore after his 2013 retirement was halted for a lack of high-level interest before the city turned to acting chief Larry Esquivel . In 2016, the city bypassed a national search when it named Eddie Garcia chief, noting his strong support among city leaders and the department’s rank and file.
The city’s last closely watched national chief search involved then- Oakland police Chief Anthony Batts being a finalist when Moore got the job in 2011. In the search process that just ended, Shon Barnes — the police chief in Madison, Wisconsin — was the other finalist being considered with Joseph, according to multiple sources familiar with the process. Both Batts and Barnes could have been the city’s first Black police chief.
Maguire’s office stated in a news release that Joseph was selected after a “rigorous recruitment process” that utilized community meetings and interview panels comprised of “city leaders, community members, and other stakeholders.”
But some of the city’s most visible civil-rights groups say they were left out of the loop. That includes Silicon Valley De-Bug, one of the police department’s ardent critics.
“The selection represents a troubling political process, something that was not inclusive or responsive to ground-up calls for change,” De-Bug co-founder Raj Jayadev said. “It’s sadly not surprising, and it’s reflective of a city leadership that is committed to its approach of over-policing and criminalizing communities of color.”
A Los Angeles native, Joseph earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Cal State Northridge and a law degree from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.
During his time as assistant chief, Joseph backed Mata’s broad push for transparency in the police department amid a string of officer misconduct scandals, including a headline-grabbing trove of racist texts by a now-former officer. Under Mata and Joseph, the department underwent an independent audit of its hiring and backgrounding practices, and random audits of officers’ body-camera videos.
Among his stated goals for running the roughly 1,200-officer agency is to support non-police responses to calls where a uniformed police presence inflames a situation that could be resolved by trained civilians. People suffering from mental health emergencies or extreme intoxication are often involved in these scenarios, as revealed in a 2023 investigation by this news organization that found serious police force was used disproportionately against these populations.
“I plan on talking about the work that we do that is successful, that helps this community be more safe,” Joseph said. “When we make mistakes, when we don’t meet the expectations of the community, I will be open and honest about that as well.”
Along the same lines, Joseph said he believes that even with his institutional pedigree, he can shepherd progressive policies and culture changes that community members critical of the department have called for.
“I hear what they’re asking for in terms of changes, and I’m committed to making those changes,” he said.
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