SAN JOSE — After a month of combing through hundreds of citizen cellphone videos, news videos and social-media profiles, police say they have identified nearly two dozen people suspected of assaults and other crimes in the wake of last month’s Donald Trump rally in downtown San Jose.

Police said the 22 suspects identified by police committed some kind of crime — mostly assault — against 24 victims. Of the 22 suspects, 20 have been contacted or arrested, and two are still being sought. Police identified 46 total assaults — meaning that multiple suspects are thought to have committed several attacks.

Chief Eddie Garcia formed a task force specifically to sort out the chaos that ensued between supporters and those protesting the Republican presidential candidate, including multiple bouts of violence that drew worldwide infamy to San Jose and torrents of criticism that neither the city nor police did enough to protect the victims.

The news comes as 14 of the victims filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday alleging that Mayor Sam Liccardo and Garcia, for political reasons, ordered officers to “stand down” in the face of the assaults. Both vehemently deny the accusation.

Garcia has repeatedly asserted that short of life-threatening situations, the police priority was to keep the two groups away from each other by maintaining a line of officers between them. He also said relatively short notice and planning time hampered the department’s ability to mobilize enough officers, allowing demonstrators to get beyond their reach.

“Our men and women did the best they could. Could we have improved? Of course we could have,” Garcia said. “We were on the national stage, and unfortunately these events occurred. But we were not going to sit on our hands. It was criminal behavior and we wanted to make sure we did our best to bring justice to those victims.”

The task force operated from relatively new digs that let them centralize their work: the police command center, marked by a bank of computer terminals and television screens headed by a wall-sized, multi-panel screen that allowed the entire group to compare notes and bring certain pieces of information to everyone’s attention. It was established during the height of Super Bowl-related activities happening in the city earlier this year and has sat mostly dormant since.

But for most of June, the room was bustling as the impromptu analysts and investigators meticulously examined videos to figure who was the person to throw a punch, who got hit, and where everyone might be now. Some surveillance images, where an attack could be clearly seen, were released to the public, who responded in several instances with potential names and profiles on social media that could lead to their identities.

“As times change and technology gets more advanced, police work needs to adapt,” Garcia said.

Officials said it was the “first full-fledged investigation using this room.” They said the eventual goal is to staff it full-time to support large-scale investigations and security for high-profile events.

But it has raised some alarm among civil-liberties advocates who have long been wary of police operations that could readily be repurposed as surveillance centers.

“The Super Bowl is long over. This could be an instance of mission creep, where something is advertised for one purpose and then used for another,” said Matt Cagle, technology and civil liberties policy attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. “This raises questions about what the technology can do and how it could be expanded.”

Cagle added, “People have a right to control how surveillance is used in their communities. It’s essential that the public be looped in.”

Garcia responded to the concerns by insisting the command center is strictly a means to streamline resources. He said it will not be used for pre-emptive surveillance.

“We’re not using this as some intelligence room where we’re going to be monitoring in times of non-crisis,” he said. “It will be used situationally and specific to events that are public safety related. We’re not just there looking at people when nothing’s going on.”

Garcia put together the ad hoc team that used the center a day after the rally. He told them to focus on identifying and tracking down as many assault and vandalism suspects as could be gleaned from the various recordings taken of the rally aftermath.

Sgt. Brian Anderson, a gang-investigations supervisor who once served in the assaults unit, ran the task force’s day-to-day operations. He said an array of detectives and non-sworn employees culled from throughout the department worked long hours to sift through a seemingly endless influx of cellphone videos, news footage, social-media profiles and public tips related to the rally.

“We had civilians and detectives working together as analysts to identify these people,” Anderson said. “I had to kick them out at the end of each day and make them go home.”

There was only one instance when the hustle stopped. On June 14, as they continued chasing leads, a police radio broadcast a dispatcher’s report that a San Jose motorcycle officer was gravely injured. Officer Michael Katherman later died at a hospital, becoming the 13th SJPD officer to die in the line of duty. They took a day or so to mourn, and, in his honor, got back to work.

“It was not an easy time. But they all came back, and continued to work through it,” Anderson said.

As they identified suspects, they tapped the MERGE unit — SJPD’s version of SWAT — to make the arrests.

Still, Cagle voiced concern about the basis of those arrests, particularly with police examining social media, contending that “government is subject to a different set of restrictions.”

“Residents shouldn’t have to wonder whether what they write online or post on social media will brand them as suspects or threats,” he said. “They shouldn’t have to take special measures to evade government surveillance.”

Police responded by pointing out that everything they examined could easily be viewed by any member of the public without any special tools. They also noted that many of their social-media leads came from public tips.

“The public came forward and helped us out a lot. It was really a collaborative effort,” Anderson said. “Without their help, we wouldn’t have been as successful as we were.”

Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga.