The Fairfax County Police are out of control and need oversight but are slick enough to organize "Campaign contributions" during election time to avoid it.

Auditor: More police oversight needed

 The Portland City Council will consider increasing the authority of the Independent Police Review Division to investigate and publicize citizen complaints against the police Wednesday.

City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade is requesting the changes to the powers of the division, which is part of her office.  Among other things, Griffin-Valade wants division investigators to be able to directly question police accused of misconducts. She also wants the division to be able to release the names of such officers during the early stages of the investigations, something it cannot do now.


 Such changes are required by the settlement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice that resolved a federal investigation into the excessive use of force by police, according to Griffin-Valade.

 The Independent Police Review Division — commonly known as the IPR — was created by the council in 2001 to investigate citizen complaints of police misconduct and recommend discipline. The City Charter currently prevents IPR investigators from directly questioning police or releasing their names in the early stages of the investigation. Bureau commanders are not required to follow the IPR's recommendations. The IPR can appeal disciplinary decisions to the council, however.

 The U.S. Department of Justice investigated allegations that police routinely use excessive force against minorities and the mentally ill at the request of former Mayor Sam Adams and former Police Commission Dan Saltzman. A settlement reached by the department and city calls for changes in how the city investigates citizen complaints against the police.

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



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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 …

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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.”

http://apps.startribune.com/most_popular/?cmd=inc&type=view&section=/local/blogs&story_id=227098211 Spokane police, mayor reach contract with ombudsman deal