San Jose Police Department

Hundreds of protesters are marching through the downtown streets of two of the Bay Area's three largest cities Friday evening.

Officer David Lezama’s body cam shows him making a fast-paced u-turn near Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose. He was trying to stop cyclist Gabriel Gonzales, who was riding without a light on his bicycle. Seconds later, Lezama uses his patrol vehicle to ram Gonzales, sending the 26-year-old flying into a chain-link fence.

"It's not an easy decision. It's been a life of service thus far and I'm going to miss it," said Chief Eddie Garcia.

Mayor Sam Liccardo hailed Garcia as an "exuberant leader who gave his heart and soul to his hometown." 

“Some of the comments that I’ve seen, absolutely abhorrent. I was shocked by some of them,” said San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia.

The mayor said he expects that any officer expressing racist, anti-Muslim, or menacing comments will be fired.

More than 225 faculty, staff and students have signed-on to a form to defund that university’s police department, immediately.

"Underneath the uniform, we're all people. So it's hit us all quite a bit," said academy graduate Fihussein Eli.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo unveiled his plan to reform the San Jose Police Department during a virtual press conference Wednesday afternoon. 

San Jose police are asking for the public's help to identify a woman who they say intentionally coughed on a small child in a stroller. Doing so is considered assault and a felony crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Officers responded about 12:40 p.m. to a home in the 4200 block of Senter Road in San Jose, where a caller reported that several people broke into the residence and assaulted members of a family.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo outlined this year's budget proposal on Thursday. It addresses calls for police reform as well as new economic challenges presented by the pandemic.

The images are seared into the minds of many San Joseans after a May 29 protest over the death of George Floyd turned violent. Protesters claim San Jose police acted without provocation, while department brass says they were under attack.

The San Jose police chief is restricting the use of rubber bullets in the wake of recent protests.

"We have much work to do to confront our long and terrible history of police brutality against black and brown Americans," Liccardo said. "Defunding urban police departments won't help us do it. It is the wrong idea at the worst possible time."