Center for Justice calls oversight in proposed city, police union contract ‘a travesty’
Public-interest
law firm the Center for Justice has seen a copy of the tentative labor contract
between Spokane and its police union and called the provisions for oversight of
the department “a travesty.”
The
agreement doesn’t comply with a City Charter amendment requiring the city to
give the ombudsman power to independently investigate police wrongdoing, the
law firm’s executive director said in a letter Thursday to Spokane Mayor David
Condon and Council President Ben Stuckart.
Voters
overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1 last February calling for
such power.
Members
of the Spokane Police Guild are currently considering a labor agreement reached
after more than two years of negotiations and state mediation.
The
Center for Justice was given a copy of the tentative contract to review but
agreed not to publicly release it.
Details
of the agreement remain confidential until after the Guild votes on the
proposed contract, which is expected next week. It would then go to the City
Council for public consideration.
The
letter sent by the Center for Justice on Thursday, however, said the new
contract “is so plainly contrary to Proposition 1 that the City Council cannot
vote to approve it without being in violation (of the charter amendment).” It
was signed by Rick Eichstaedt, executive director of the center.
Stuckart
has said he wants to hold public forums on the contract as well as a proposed
ordinance needed to boost the ombudsman’s powers. A council vote on the
ordinance was postponed on Oct. 7 because of the pending
contract agreement.
Currently,
the ombudsman can’t independently investigate allegations of police wrongdoing;
he mainly monitors the department’s internal affairs investigations.
Eichstaedt
recommended that the proposed contract be reviewed first by the mayor’s Use of
Force Commission, which has recommended an independent ombudsman.
He
said the proposed contract and council decision to postpone action were major
setbacks in “the city’s efforts to rebuild public confidence” in the department
and city administration.
The Center for Justice
sued the city and police on behalf of the mother and estate of Otto Zehm, an
unarmed janitor who died after a violent encounter with police in 2006. The
case was settled in 2012 when the city paid $1.67 million in damages to
Zehm’s family.
Reducing oversight won't build trust in New London police
The
effort by two New London city councilors to keep discussions of alleged police
misconduct closed to the public has reached a point of desperation. Unable to
get anyone with legal training or administrative authority to agree with them,
the councilors - John Maynard and Marie Freiss-McSparran - are now trying to
protect officers by truncating the entire civilian complaint process.
In 1976, the city
agreed to a stipulated consent decree issued by the U.S. District Court of
Connecticut in a case brought by a Hispanic citizen. The defendant had alleged
discriminatory actions by police and pointed to the lack of any formal complaint
process. The two-page decree required the city to create one. Anyone who feels
police acted improperly can file a complaint form. Police then conduct an
internal investigation and issue findings. The final report and the complaint
that precipitated it are public documents.
To provide additional
oversight, a council back then created a Police Community Relations Committee
"to foster better understanding between citizens and police
officers." The council later gave it the job of reviewing those internal
investigations to assure they were adequate or, in other words, to make sure
there was not a whitewash.
This responsibility
has led to a debate in recent years as to whether the community relations
committee should be discussing the complaints and investigation findings in
public. The answer is obvious. Yes, the meetings should be open; yet some
continue to resist.
The complaints and
the reports are public records, so of course the committee's discussion about
them should be as well.
The city attorney
concludes the discussions must be open under the Connecticut Freedom of
Information law. Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio agrees, as do the police chief and
deputy chief. They all recognize transparency and openness is vital to securing
public confidence in the process.
There remain holdouts
on the committee itself, those who contend it is unfair to officers to talk
about details of the allegations openly. Nevertheless, in recent months the
committee has voted repeatedly to keep its meetings open. Officer Todd Lynch,
the union president, objects, but that is no surprise.
What is surprising is
how persistently councilors Maynard and Friess-McSparran keep fighting to keep
this information from the public. With very few exceptions, the Police
Community Relations Committee verifies that the internal investigations were
carried out adequately. Also, with few exceptions, those investigations clear
police of the allegations of misconduct. So why hide anything and erode faith
in those findings?
Having failed to win
the debate, and finding themselves on the wrong side of FOI law, the two
councilors now propose stripping the community relations committee of the
authority to review the adequacy of police investigations into civilian
complaints. The 2-0 vote came at the May 2 Public Safety Committee meeting,
chaired by Maynard and of which Freiss-McSparran is a member. The third member,
Councilor Donald Macrino, was absent.
In a Sept. 17 letter
sent to Mayor Finizio and the council, the Police Community Relations Committee
strongly objected to the attempt to take away its reviewing authority, calling
that its "primary responsibility."
"By voting to
take this responsibility away, the Public Safety Committee has voted to take
the people's voice away," states the letter.
Freiss-McSparran told
me the change would allow the committee to focus on building police community
relations. Those upset with the results of how police handled their complaint
could still appeal to the mayor, she notes.
To her credit,
Freiss-McSparran is frank about her primary motive - protecting officers from
having allegations about them discussed in public. She doesn't want to see an
officer's reputation hurt by unfounded allegations.
Good cops don't need
that protection and bad cops shouldn't have it.
"This committee,
through ongoing review of completed police investigations provides necessary
oversight of the citizen complaint process. This supervision is essential if we
are to continue building trust between the community and the New London police
force," the committee letter well states.
Fortunately, this
ordinance is probably headed nowhere. The proposed ordinance now goes to the
Administration Committee. Chairman Wade Hyslop says he opposes it. It's
unlikely the council would support it. If it did, Mayor Finizio would veto it.
Voters, however, can
weigh in. Maynard is not seeking re-election, but Freiss-McSparran is. Voters
should repudiate her blind support for what she sees as serving the interests
of police, even at the cost of public accountability. By handing her a layoff
notice, voters can send the message that while they respect police, they want
their government open.
Paul Choiniere is
editorial page editor.
Police sergeants' union sues to stop police-oversight bill
The
13,000-member union representing New York Police Department sergeants is suing
to block a police-oversight bill passed recently by the City Council,
filing legal papers today in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, who vetoed the bill, is also suing the Council over the measure.
The law in
question facilitates lawsuits against the department and officers by
individuals who believe they were subjected to profiling during a
stop-and-frisk. Victorious litigants can demand policy changes but cannot win
monetary rewards under the law, which takes effect Nov. 20, according to the
Council.
Under the law,
police officers cannot target suspects based solely on race, ethnicity, housing
status, sexual orientation or a host of other identifying factors. They can,
however, chase leads that include such descriptions.
The lawsuit
seeks to undo the law altogether before Bloomberg leaves office Dec. 31.
"It will
allow people to sue us for perfectly legal and necessary police work that keeps
the city’s streets safe,” Mullins added.
City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn, who allowed the bill to come to the floor for a vote
but did not support it herself, expressed no concern over the suit, calling it,
through a spokesman, "a key component of the Council's reform of
stop-and-frisk and to ensuring unconstitutional stops end."
The bill passed
in the middle of the night in one of the most dramatic Council meetings in
recent memory. It had 34 votes, which is exactly the number needed to override
a mayoral veto.
The Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association also announced plans to sue the Council over the bill.
Spokane police oversight will only happen with pressure from you
OK,
just for the record.
All
seven members of the Spokane City Council have supported, in principle, the
need for independent, investigatory oversight of the Police Department, and
opposed any agreement with the Spokane Police Guild that will
preclude that.
All
seven. Council President Ben Stuckart, and council members Mike Allen, Mike
Fagan, Nancy McLaughlin, Steve Salvatori, Jon Snyder and Amber Waldref.
We
must not forget this, nor can we allow them to forget this, now that there is a
very strong whiff in the air of the half-measure, of capitulation,
of acquiescence.
There
is a very strong whiff in the air of “better than nothing.”
If
the auguries prove correct, only these seven will stand between the citizens of
Spokane and better than nothing. They will face an enormous amount of pressure.
They will be forced to consider dire consequences – real ones – if they do not
go along with better than nothing. Better than nothing will be offered as an
alternative to the chokehold that the Guild has on the city in terms of legal
options and precedent. These seven could very easily be left with no truly good
choices. They could be forced into a place where principle and practicality do
not intersect.
The
public must remind and keep reminding these seven – relentlessly – what they
voted for in February and what now is enshrined in the City Charter.
Someone
besides the cops must investigate the cops.
Perhaps
none of this will come to pass. Perhaps the tentative agreement between the
mayor and the Guild actually will satisfy the mandates of Proposition 1 and the
City Charter. Or perhaps there is some long-game strategy here, in which the
contract omits independent investigations but the council is able to establish
it outside the contract.
Maybe
everything will work out just fine. Maybe the clear, unambiguous will of the citizens
will be done.
But
for a lot of hints to the contrary, consider what happened Monday. The council
was to vote on a proposal to implement Prop 1. This proposal included an
important caveat: If the ordinance mucked up contract negotiations in any way,
that portion of it would be held in abeyance.
At
the last minute, the council was subjected to a full-court press, from the
chief of police and others, begging them not to pass the part of the ordinance
that would have given the ombudsman’s office full investigative power. They
were assured, council members said, that the tentative contract agreement would
have some simply wonderful elements in it. They were also assured that if they
passed it, the Guild would immediately file an unfair labor practices complaint
and reject the tentative agreement.
The
council demurred, voting to establish an oversight commission but not to give
the ombudsman investigative power. Stuckart outlined a positive-sounding
scenario: The council will hold public hearings on the proposed contract in
November, before voting on it. If it falls short of the public’s wishes, he
said, the council could reject it then. Bringing this out into the light will
be best in the long run.
But
what do the shadowy events of Monday night foreshadow? A big victory for public
oversight? Or an onrushing train full of better than nothing?
To
recap: The City Council was going to create the independent oversight that 70
percent of voters asked for eight months ago. The Guild threatened to file a
grievance. The City Council backed off.
They
may have done so wisely. But it is now more important than ever that the
citizens of Spokane do not forget what these seven people who represent us have
pledged to do. Because it is very, very likely that these seven – all
hard-working and honorable folks, all acting in good faith – will soon be faced
with very, very difficult decisions regarding the Police Department and
citizen oversight.
It
is likely that we will soon be discussing proposals that sound like half-measures
and capitulations – measures that sound like “progress.” It is likely that they
will be considering a proposed contract with the Guild that does not include
anything about independent oversight, at least according to people who say they
have reviewed the agreement. It is likely that we will soon be discussing
different notions of what constitutes “independent oversight,” and alternative
approaches to public accountability.
No
one will say it, but there it will be: Better than nothing.
It’s
a hard thing we’re trying to do here, to cram accountability onto a group of
public employees that has resisted it with everything they’ve got. Their
resistance only makes it more urgent: Someone besides the cops must investigate
the cops.
To
get there, the public has to become as obstinate, as unyielding, as determined
as the Spokane Police Guild. It must become just as deaf to the entreaties of
compromise and practicality – as singular and blindly unreasonable – as the
Spokane Police Guild.
Maybe
then we can get what we voted for.
Shawn Vestal can be
reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com.
Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.
police oversight: Editorial
Pasadena
Councilman John Kennedy’s current quest to get his colleagues interested in
studying creating a police commission for the city has been a lonely one.
He hasn’t been
able to get a single colleague, and there are seven of them on the City
Council, to vote for the study, though he insists that he is currently
interested in just that — looking at the issue — saying he has not made up his
own mind about the wisdom of creating such a body.
But Kennedy has
not even been able to convince two other council members in the city’s Northwest,
where most of the minority community lives and where most of the recent tragic
police shootings and shakedowns by possibly rogue officers have occurred, to
vote for his motion.
Rationally, there
are reasons for skepticism about a new bureaucracy, even when it is a
citizen-driven one.
Big-city police
commission members have a history of unhelpful grandstanding, for instance.
Fellow council members note that their own body has a Public Safety Committee
that oversees policing issues. They warn against having unelected locals not
responsible to the voters, as they are, meddling in law-enforcement affairs.
Then again,
council members could say the same thing about long-standing, powerful bodies
they appoint, including the Planning Commission. Yet they don’t.
City managers
aren’t elected. Police chiefs, for that matter, aren’t elected. They both hold
powerful posts.
And the fact of it
— a fact the Pasadena City Council has not been at all good at acknowledging —
is that there are real problems within the Police Department, especially the
shooting death by officers of young Kendrec McDade and the revelations by this
newspaper of questionable arrests and interrogation tactics by out-of-control
homicide detectives. Sometimes the good intentions of a good and properly
respected police chief such as Phillip Sanchez aren’t enough, because they
can’t be. When you are within an organization, it’s too hard to get an outside
perspective on it.
Responding to the
idea of a police commission, department-watcher Kris Ockerhauser of the local
ACLU has suggested instead creating an office of an inspector general,
independent of all politics. She says her observation of the council’s Public
Safety Committee has been that its members tend to be overly reliant on reports
and judgments from the Police Department itself, rubber-stamping its
recommendations. While creating a new office might be expensive, she notes, it
wouldn’t be as costly as paying out some of the million-dollar judgments the
department has had to pay.
There is a third
possibility that could work even better and cost less. After the Kolts Report
detailed rogue elements in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the
Board of Supervisors appointed the firm of independent policing expert Merrick
Bobb, who happens to live in Altadena, to issue semiannual reports on the
department and its deputies.
Their powerful
insights into department practices have changed policing for the county for the
better. The firm was also hired last year to perform similar watchdog duties
overseeing the Seattle Police Department.
Details could be
different. It might be that biannual rather than twice-yearly reports could be
made. But it’s an idea worth studying.
Are there enough
council votes to do so?
The Spokane City Council will take up a proposal to give the police ombudsman independent investigative authority
The Spokane City
Council will take up a proposal to give the police ombudsman independent
investigative authority during its regular meeting Monday at 6 p.m. in Council
Chambers at City Hall.
The Spokane
mayor’s office and Police Guild last week reached a tentative agreement on a
new labor contract that changes the way the police ombudsman provides oversight
of officer misconduct, but may not go as far as establishing the independence
called for by voters in February.
At the same
time, the Spokane City Council is scheduled to take up a new ordinance to
create an independent ombudsman with capability to launch investigations under
the authority of a new five-member citizen Ombudsman Commission.
The ordinance is
being pushed by Councilman Steve Salvatori to implement a city charter
amendment that won 69 percent voter approval in February. The amendment calls
for independent investigation by the ombudsman.
City Council
President Ben Stuckart said Friday that he wants to postpone a vote on the
ordinance until the tentative agreement with the Police Guild gets a
public airing.
Police Guild
members have yet to approve the new contract; if they do, it will be made
public, Stuckart said.
After that, Stuckart
said he wants to schedule at least three public forums to take public input,
including comment from the city’s Use of Force Commission.
The commission
in August made 26 recommendations, including giving independent investigative
authority to the ombudsman.
Stuckart
declined to say whether the tentative agreement provides for an
independent ombudsman.
But proponents
of an independent ombudsman said they fear the tentative agreement will not go
far enough in satisfying the city charter requirement.
Spokane attorney
Breean Beggs said there is concern that adopting the ordinance Monday would
cause Police Guild members to vote no on the contract agreement.
He said he has
been told the tentative agreement makes a few changes in the current
ombudsman’s authority but does not establish the ability to independently
investigate wrongdoing.
The ombudsman
was created by the City Council in 2008 but has only been able to look over the
shoulders of the department’s internal affairs office.
The ombudsman
can receive complaints but has to forward them to internal affairs for
investigation. The ombudsman can recommend additional investigation in a case,
but that recommendation can be overruled by the internal affairs investigator,
the chief or the mayor.
Beggs said it’s
his understanding that the tentative agreement would allow a new Ombudsman
Commission to rule on the recommendation for additional investigation.
Salvatori’s
proposed ordinance also would give authority over independent investigations to
a citizen Ombudsman Commission. An exception is made for criminal
investigations, which would be solely handled by internal affairs.
The ombudsman
also would not be involved in discipline under the proposed ordinance.
Beggs said
independent investigative authority for the ombudsman would be legal, even if
it is not in the contract, if the ombudsman has no role in discipline. The
ombudsman would actually have a stronger hand in oversight if he or she were
removed from the disciplinary process, he said, adding that such responsibility
should remain with internal affairs, the chief and mayor.
The job of the
ombudsman, he said, “is to open a window to the public” about cases of
misconduct and the department’s internal handling of them. That’s where
significant accountability lies, not necessarily with discipline, he said.
Salvatori said
adopting the ordinance Monday would not preclude making changes after a
contract is approved.
He said the
public, through the ballot, has been demanding independent oversight
of police.
“Democracy does
not go on hold because there is not a contract,” he said.
Salvatori
characterized the agreement as a “thoughtful product” but said he and other
council members are required to keep the terms confidential until the tentative
agreement is approved by the Police Guild.
He said he
believes the negotiations over the ombudsman’s role should have been done
publicly with participation by the guild.
Guild President
John Gately said the agreement has not yet been discussed by guild members at a
meeting, and he declined to comment further.
For the past 21
months, the guild has been working under its old contract, which expired at the
end of 2011.
New police oversight commission meets, reviews cases
Sworn in and apprised of their first real work, the
members of the new Police Conduct Oversight Commission chose three cases of
alleged police misconduct to review in their first ever meeting Tuesday night
at City Hall.
The seven-member civilian panel is the latest piece of the
city’s new system for civilian oversight of the police department. It was
formed after last year’s collapse of the city’s Civilian Police Review
Authority, which fell apart amid complaints from its members that their rulings
on police misconduct cases were routinely ignored by the police chief.
On Tuesday, the commission members spent two hours getting
sworn in, reviewing some rules and a code of ethics and discussing which cases
of alleged police misconduct they should review. The members chose three from a
list of ten randomly chosen cases. Michael Browne, director of the city’s
Office of Police Conduct Review, urged them to limit their review to three
cases.
He spent some time after the meeting explaining to a
reporter the commission’s work. The commission will not “pick apart” the cases
of alleged misconduct or “second guess” whether or not discipline is warranted
in each case. That heavy lifting will be done by a Police Conduct Review Panel,
which is made up of two civilians and two police officers.
The commission will instead review summaries of each case
and look for “broad stroke” policy issues to address in the civilian oversight
process, said Browne.
That description and the commission’s relationship with
the public came under fire at meetings' end.
Chuck Turchick, a frequent presence at meetings of the
Civilian Police Review Authority, tried to ask the commission how it will do
its work if it sees only summaries of each case and not the full details.
Turchick was cut off before he finished that sentence by commission chair
Andrea Brown, who said he had used up his two minutes. Brown had originally
suggested that the commission not hear from the public at all, but relented
after her fellow commission members urged that the public be allowed to address
the commission.
“This is very symbolic,” said Turchick as he walked back
to his seat. “You have about two or three people appear at the meeting to make
comments and you limit it to two minutes.”
Spokane police, mayor reach contract with
ombudsman deal
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