SAN JOSE — The city’s chief civilian police watchdog is sidelined after he was placed on administrative leave this week, though clarity on what prompted the decision remains behind closed doors.
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The San Jose mayor’s office confirmed Wednesday that Eddie Aubrey, who has been serving as the city’s Independent Police Auditor since his appointment in April 2024, was put on leave Tuesday, but did not comment on the basis of the decision.
“I want to thank the team who will continue their important work,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement to this news organization. “More details will be shared as they are available.”
Aubrey did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. His sudden benching means that his No. 2, Assistant Independent Police Auditor Dwight White, is temporarily running the office. White joined the office last year after a police oversight career that saw him appointed in 2021 as Sacramento’s first inspector general before coming to San Jose.
Aubrey’s time as police auditor has had a relatively low profile. In his first year, he sought, as some of his predecessors had, to expand the reach of his office and increase its access to records for police shootings and use-of-force cases in part to give his staff a more in-depth and granular view of when police inflict injuries on suspects and members of the public.
That proposal was ultimately rejected by the city, and soon after, Aubrey had a rare high-profile clash with the San Jose Police Department when it summarily barred his office from getting its routine briefing and passive crime-scene access at the scene of a July 6, 2025 fatal police shooting. The new and sudden policy shift was short lived: After the department subsequently barred its own internal affairs investigators from such crime scenes — a move viewed as the department trying to square its position with the IPA — the agency reversed course on all counts.
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The city warmly welcomed Aubrey, 67, upon his appointment more than two years ago, as he arrived with a background that encompassed work as a police officer in Santa Monica and Los Angeles from 1980 to 1997, followed by work in Seattle, where he earned a law degree and served as a criminal and city prosecutor, headed a community college public safety department, and served as a pro tem judge.
In 2009, he led the establishment of a police oversight body similar to San Jose’s model in Fresno, and relocated to the Bay Area in 2016 to be the founding leader of the Office of Professional Accountability in the Richmond Police Department.
White, now working in Aubrey’s place, came to San Jose after serving as Sacramento’s first inspector general, leading independent and administrative investigations into police shootings, in-custody deaths and excessive force cases and reviewing misconduct complaints. That was preceded by work in Chicago investigating white-collar misconduct for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and an earlier job investigating police misconduct and homicides in that city. He has a law degree from the University of Illinois – Chicago School of Law.
San Jose’s IPA office was established in 1993 as a compromise between city leaders, who wanted a police commission, and the police union, which resisted creating additional civilian oversight. It primarily functions as an advisory body, with no means to enforce reforms or recommendations beyond public and political pressure.
The office has gradually expanded its footprint in the past few years, including when voters in 2020 approved authorizing the IPA’s office to audit internal police complaints — known as department-initiated investigations — and review police use-of-force records. That measure also gave the city latitude to take on a larger role in police oversight, and while the city explored the idea of moving SJPD internal investigations out of the police department and into the IPA’s office, it has not been seriously considered in the years since.
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This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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