SAN JOSE — After a broad and quiet search, San Jose is elevating acting Police Chief Paul Joseph to the full-time job following a closed-door 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.
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.
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.
The city’s process to find Mata’s successor was also relatively low profile and far less public-facing than past searches. 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 largely amounted to pretense.
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.
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The city’s last substantive 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.
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. Joseph has been vocal about addressing misconduct, including describing the department’s embarrassment to the city council last year and restating his commitment to rooting it out.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.