Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

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C ITIZEN R EVIEW OF P OLICE: APPROACHES AND I MPLEMENTATION 113 power. As one chief said, “The problem is not the con- cept [of citizen oversight] but using biased staff. . . . [For example,] staff ask complainants exculpatory questions, but they don’t ask exculpatory questions of officers that would justify their behavior.” According to a report eval- uating Tucson’s oversight system, “The appointment of [board] members with strong political agendas can result in their use of the review body as a tool for promoting those causes.”4 When they are biased, investigators and board members can sometimes come across as hostile. An officer who was a witness at a board meeting felt the process was so demeaning and insulting, she wrote a memo to the chief saying she would walk out of any future hearings: “The board chairperson was argumentative and condescending, and he in effect accused me of lying.” Bias, some offi- cers feel, also leads staff to tolerate complainants who are only out to get the police, such as drug dealers who regularly file complaints only to build a specious defense on grounds of harassment and to slow down assertive officers by getting complaints into their personnel folders. Officers in several jurisdictions reported that some com- plainants take advantage of the complaint process to ben- efit a planned or ongoing civil suit against the city or officer. Because everything said at hearings in some juris- dictions is discoverable, plaintiffs in civil cases in effect get free “prediscovery.” Daryl Lynn, chairperson of the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority, reports that “some [citizens] do file complaints just to get dis- covery of the police department’s case to use in a civil suit.” After Mark Gissiner, a Cincinnati human resources analyst, conducted an investigation and prepared a report that concluded that an officer had used excessive force, a lawyer used the report to sue the city for damages. The city settled for $300,000. A plaintiff’s attorney in another jurisdiction described how he makes use of the oversight process (see “An Attorney Uses Citizen Oversight as a Screening Tool for Civil Suits”). Officers in several jurisdictions felt that the practice of “added allegations,” also called “collateral misconduct,” was particularly unfair. Some oversight procedures, including those in Berkeley, Flint, Rochester, and San Francisco, investi- gate and sustain allegations that are not part of the citizens’ original complaint but that oversight staff discover in the course of their investigation or review. For example, the complaint may be about the alleged use of foul language, but the oversight body learns the officer was not wearing a badge at the time of the incident or failed to file a report. One oversight body sustained an added allegation against an officer for not “timing out”—recording the end mileage on a wagon transport. These added allegations are not “citizen” com- plaints but accusations of misconduct by the review body. Officers complain that they are held accountable for tiny rule violations, such as placing the wrong offense code on a citation. One chief said, “It gets tiresome to get nitpicked.” Officers also object to having “not sustained” findings included in their file. Finally, many officers complain about the long delays the complaint process AN ATTORNEY USES CITIZEN OVERSIGHT AS A SCREENING TOOL FOR CIVIL SUITS A private attorney reported that he has used sustained citizen oversight cases as evidence in civil suits, and he may let the oversight agency do its investigation first so he can benefit from its work product when only a small settlement will be involved. When the board does not sustain a case, he reexamines the strength of his case. As a result, he uses the oversight system as a screening device. However, he has still won cases the oversight body has rejected, but he also lost a case the board sustained—even though there was a lower burden of proof in the civil case (preponderance of evidence) than in the board hearing (clear and convincing). Officers in several jurisdictions felt that the practice of “added allegations” was particularly unfair.