Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

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C HAPTER 4: STAFFING 88 Law Enforcement (IACOLE) from 1995–99, is whether the empathy for police work that board members may develop by attending citizens’ academies (not a bad thing in itself) makes it difficult for them to focus in the future on whether officers violated department policies and procedures. Ride-alongs In Minneapolis, board members must do one ride-along after they have been appointed. However, a police lieutenant in anoth- er city observed, “One or two ride- alongs are useless [as a learning tool] because officers are on their best behavior,” and any one shift could be atypical. “Volunteer board members need to go on several to begin to gain an understanding of police work,” he said. Reflecting this judgment, the St. Paul ordinance requires new board members to go on at least 10 ride-alongs, 2 in each district and 1 with each of 4 specialty units (e.g., traffic, search warrants, canine). Evelyn Scott, a board member in Rochester, went on a ride-along and reported: I ended up running through back alleys and back- yards following an officer chasing a suspect. The officer arrested the person, handcuffed him, put him in the cruiser, and drove him to the booking area. When the suspect kept cursing the officer the whole way, I realized how much patience officers have to have. Later [when she was a board mem- ber], we had a case in which an officer stopped a suspicious person. When the officer tried to frisk him, the man took off. The officer chased him, and the man fired back. The officer then shot and wounded the man. The citizen filed a complaint against the officer for use of excessive force. Reviewing the case, I remembered my ride-along and recalled how fast things happen, how quickly officers have to react, how situations that look rou- tine may be dangerous, and how officers may have to make an instantaneous decision about whether to shoot. On-the-job training In some jurisdictions, the bulk of the training occurs on the job; in all jurisdictions, some of the required experi- ence can be learned only by doing it. Inservice training The Albuquerque city ordinance requires board mem- bers to attend a yearly 4-hour training session conduct- ed by a civil rights attorney. Tucson legislation requires board members to pursue 48 hours of educational oppor- tunities annually, such as ride-alongs and the police department’s citizens’ academy. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department periodically provides members with an hour of inservice training before (or instead of) regular board meetings that has included explana- tions of: • Deputies’procedures for dealing with armed and unarmed subjects in relationship to body shape and size. • The procedures the department’s psychologist follows in conducting fitness-for-duty evaluations. • IA operations and chain-of-command procedures for reviewing investigations. • Office policy and procedures related to its use-of-force matrix and defensive tactics that included simulated demonstrations by deputies followed by board member participation in exercises designed to help them deter- mine the level of force used. Investigators For oversight systems that investigate alleged officer mis- conduct, selecting and training investigators also requires careful attention. According to Mark Gissiner, former IACOLE president and a senior human resources analyst for Cincinnati who has investigated allegations of police misconduct since 1985: “The investigation, analysis, and determination of whether excessive force occurred is an extremely difficult task.”4 The St. Paul ordinance requires new board members to go on at least 10 ride-alongs, 2 in each district.