At Issue: Oversight is “complicated, messy”
BY CURTIS BLACK
Sharon Fairley has been studying the history of civilian review of police across the country, going back to the first example, in Washington D.C. in 1948. Details vary widely across localities. “It doesn’t matter what you do — officers are always going to fight civilian oversight,” she said at an Invisible Institute forum March 22.
“They just generally don’t like the idea of a civilian judging what officers do,” she said. “All we can do is assure them that they are going to get fair shake.” Civilian oversight of police “is just a complicated, messy thing — so many stakeholders have interests that come into conflict.” She added, “I really wish that the [police] union was taking a little more leadership.”
Fairley is chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority and charged with standing up its successor, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability — though she argued against using the term “transition” for the changeover, saying COPA would be a completely new agency.
Fairley said draft rules for COPA procedures and guidelines for release of information will be issued for public comment.
Fairley said she’d made comments on the Chicago Police Department’s newest draft of a new use of force policy. While praising the new policy on deadly force, she said the policy should specifically prohibit use of deadly force unless an assailant poses an immediate threat.
Asked by moderator Jamie Kalven about the code of silence — and its enforcement by high-ranking personnel — Fairley said change “really has to come from the top.”
First report on stop and frisk agreement
African Americans comprised 71 percent of people subjected to street stops by Chicago officers during the first six months of 2016, and 73 percent of those frisked during stops – far out of proportion to the city’s population — according to the first report issued by a court-appointed monitor. Retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys was appointed under a 2015 agreement between CPD and the ACLU. Only 465 weapons were recovered in over 18,000 frisks, according to the report.
Keys found that between 6 and 10 percent of stops failed to meet legal standards, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. That appears to be a big improvement from the period analyzed by the ACLU in the lead-up to the agreement. But blacks and Hispanics were more than twice as likely to be subjected to unlawful stops as were whites, according to the report.
Rollout of new investigative stop reports under the agreement was not without difficulty. An initial version with three narrative sections to describe reasons for stops and frisks was reduced to include only one narrative section. Only about a third of department members were trained to use the new form by the March 1, 2016 deadline set by the agreement.
Despite written training materials approved by Keys and the ACLU, Keys said he observed that classroom trainers “emphasized the burdens” represented by the new form “rather than the benefits of detailed data and transparency,” and “failed to emphasize the need for police officers to adhere to long-established constitutional imperatives.” (The Justice Department report on CPD identified similar shortcomings.) But he said a later training session indicated that his recommendations for improving training were largely adopted.
Contrary to some reports, Keys said his field observations showed that filling out the forms took only ten to fifteen minutes. He said the time was worth it. “The individual right of individuals who are detained by police officers [are] every bit as important as the public interest served by police officers in detecting and deterring criminal activity,” he argued.
Grassroots recommendations
The Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability, issued a “Community Conversations Report” compiling recommendations from 19 neighborhood meetings attended by 1,650 residents over recent months.
“Participants didn’t just support tweaks to police department policies” or “small-scale reform” but called for “transformational change — fundamentally rethinking the role of the police officer, reimagining the way police officers engage with residents, and restructuring the way the police department is governed to ensure that it embraces the values and priorities of the people it serves,” according to the report.
Participants discussed “a long history of disrespect, abuse and humiliation” suffered by marginalized communities, saying “racism is at the core of this abusive and humiliating behavior.” They said “overly aggressive tactics” are “degrading, dehumanizing and probably illegal,” and bias, disrespect, and violence by police make it less likely residents will cooperate with police.
The report lists dozens of recommendations for promoting community policing, revamping police tactics, involving the community in recruitment and training, improving accountability, changing police union contracts, and providing support for officers.
The coalition came together last year to push the recommendation by the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force for creation of a Community Safety Oversight Board. GAPA will hold further community meetings focused on that question over the coming months, according to the report.
In preliminary discussions on a community oversight board, people were “deeply skeptical” that a board selected by the mayor could be “independent and accountable to the community.” Some participants favored choosing board members by elections, some favored “a selection process that ensures the board is diverse and representative.”
The community oversight board should appoint COPA’s chief administrator and play a role in the selection of the police superintendent and setting department policies, according to the report.
Organizers say Mayor Rahm Emanuel knew that GAPA’s press conference to release its report was scheduled and chose the same day to release his announcement that three town hall “listening sessions” will be held in April and May by the Community Policing Advisory Council.
“The difference is top-down versus bottom-up,” said Delmarie Cobb of GAPA. The community conversations were positive and productive “because they were conducted by community leaders from community organizations within the respective communities,” she said.
Access to counsel
Cook County Chief Justice Timothy Evans signed an order granting a blanket appointment of the public defender’s office to represent people in police custody before their court appearance.
It’s the first action on one of the simpler recommendations issued by the Police Accountability Task Force last year, which cited a study by First Defense Legal Aid that found that less than 1 percent of people arrested last year were able to consult with an attorney at the police station.
The effectiveness of the order “may ultimately depend on the cooperation of Chicago police, who in the past, say legal aid officials, have been reluctant to grant suspects phone calls or give attorneys access to suspects while they’re being questioned,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
A police spokesperson said the department had agreed to post phone numbers for free legal services in stations, “but did not comment on questions about granting phone calls to those in custody,” the Tribune reported.
In the first week since the order was issued, virtually all calls have come from one police station, raising questions about whether phone numbers were posted uniformly, and whether arrestees have access to phones, Eliza Solowiej of First Defense told View from the Ground.
The Cook County Public Defender’s Office is currently responding to calls from police stations during the day and exploring the possibility of stationing attorneys at stations. First Defense is recruiting volunteer attorneys to provide coverage at night.
Johnson issues “Next Steps”
Supt. Eddie Johnson issued a framework for “Next Steps for Reform” last week in an effort to underscore the Chicago Police Department’s commitment to reform.
“We’re not just saying we’re going to reform — we’re showing that we’re reforming,” Johnson told reporters.
The 27-page document lists goals for reinvigorating community policing, improving training, supervision, and accountability systems, and revising use of force policies.
On use of force, the document cites language that was removed from a new draft of the department’s proposed policy, including requiring professional and respectful treatment of people, ensuring racial bias does not influence use of force decisions, and using only the necessary level of force.
A number of initiatives aligned with recommendations from the U.S. Justice Department’s report on CPD, including improvements to training in general, more effective training on investigatory stops, improvements to recruitment and training of field training officers, reducing supervisory ratios and training supervisors in leadership and management skills, improving access to officer wellness programs, and keeping officer witnesses separate before they give statements following shootings.
Command channel review of disciplinary decisions — criticized by the mayor’s task force last year — will be reviewed and may be replaced with a streamlined process advocated by PATF.
“Next Steps for Reform” is “not a detailed project plan,” but such a plan is “in development within CPD,” according to the document.
“If these specific reforms are implemented in 2017, I feel confident they will create a foundation on which the department can continue to build,” said Police Board president Lori Lightfoot, appearing with Johnson at the release of the framework.
“We’ll reserve judgment until they ‘walk the walk,’ but they’re clearly ‘talking the talk’ — feeling and responding to public pressure,” commented Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association. Some of the agenda items have been promised before, according to the Chicago Reporter.
Foxx on wrongful convictions, charging police
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is revamping her office’s Conviction Integrity Unit and “elevating [its] work,” aiming to reverse the county’s reputation as the wrongful conviction capital of the U.S.,” the Sun-Times reported.
Meanwhile, Foxx is walking back her campaign promise to seek special prosecutors to investigate all police shootings, now saying that what’s important is moving swiftly to file charges, the Sun-Times reported.
Foxx has charged two law enforcement officers with murder in her first three months on the job; her office declined to charge Chicago Police Officer Robert Rialmo in the shooting deaths of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones. Five people have been fatally shot by police officers in Cook County so far this year, according to the Sun-Times.
Evading discipline
The Sun-Times examined the case of Chicago Police Officer Clay Walker, who has evaded discipline for 14 years after being accused of punching a 22-year-old woman in the face.
Walker avoided a 15-day suspension when he went on disability leave and later filed a grievance over the punishment. In the meantime, the department opened 11 more disciplinary investigations against him. He’s one of 400 still-unresolved complaints lodged against police during the administration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
The Tribune has identified over a dozen misconduct cases in which suspensions were ordered but was never served, the result of a “startlingly disjointed system” for discipline.
Immediate steps on bail reform
While a consensus is emerging over the need for bail reform in Cook County, “grand statements” have so far been “backed up by little action,” County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia wrote in the Tribune. An immediate solution would have judges release inmates on personal or affordable bonds — and if they won’t do it, “the Illinois Supreme Court should issue rules to that effect,” following the lead of the court’s administrative office, Garcia proposed.
Angelo to meet with Trump
Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo has been summoned along with national Fraternal Order of Police leadership to meet with President Donald Trump, according to a letter from Angelo to FOP membership reported by the Sun-Times. “We could only assume the topic of Chicago crime might find its way on the agenda,” which may also “include the necessity to impose a consent decree,” according to the letter.
The summons comes as Angelo faces a run-off against Officer Kenneth Graham in the FOP presidential election.
