Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

Home Browse Search

she has been receiving and monitoring. The board dis- cusses other topics, such as the activities of off-duty offi- cers. A police department IA member attends to answer questions about department policies and procedures and to report on IA activities during the previous month. Other activities The board may provide recommendations for changes in department policies and procedures to the chief, the audi- tor, the city manager, or the mayor and city council. Based on research by a board subcommittee that found that 11 of 26 police departments conducted random drug testing of all officers, the board sent a memo to the chief recommending random drug testing. The chief has not yet acted because testing is covered in the labor-management agreement, and the union is negotiating a new agreement. Staffing and budget Each council member appoints one board member for a 4-year term (or until the end of the elected official’s term). The board reports to the mayor and the city coun- cil. The city clerk provides staff to type, duplicate, and disseminate the board’s minutes. There are no other board expenses. The relationship between the board and the auditor The auditor and board do not officially report to each other. However, by city ordinance the board: •Monitors the auditor by examining her monthly reports and asking her questions during monthly board meetings. •May require the auditor to monitor or audit a case and report on her findings. •May offer her recommendations. The auditor and the board both have a legal mandate to review completed cases, either on their own initiative or in response to a citizen complaint. There has been no duplication of effort with reviews of IA investigations because the board typically asks Perez to audit cases about which it has a concern and to report back her find- ings; board members lack the time and expertise to con- duct more than a few reviews themselves. There also has been no duplication because Perez has chosen to go to every board meeting, where board members can routinely ask for updates on her previous month’s cases and the results of her monitoring activities. Both the board and the auditor have made similar policy or procedure recommendations. For example, an officer who had had a personal relationship with a citizen took out a restraining order against the person and observed while another officer served it. Because there was no clear department policy prohibiting this specific action, IA exonerated the officer of the citizen’s allegation of inappropriate behavior. However, after reviewing the case, both the auditor and the board independently requested the department to remind officers that they need to report to the department’s legal department whenever they are involved in serving a restraining order in which the officer is a named party. The auditor handles the day-to-day work of citizen over- sight, while the board addresses general citizen concerns, not just complaints about specific acts of alleged miscon- duct. As a result, one board member feels “the board acts as the police department’s eyes and ears for finding out the community’s concerns about police behavior—it is the community’s pipeline to the police.”When citizens at a board meeting expressed concern that there was no ran- dom drug testing for regular police officers (except for narcotics officers), the board set up a subcommittee to research how other police departments conduct random testing (see “Other activities”on this page). Distinctive features The most unusual feature of the oversight procedure in Tucson is the use of both a paid, professional auditor and an independent volunteer citizen review board. (See “San Jose, California’s, Independent Police Auditor Has Some Similarities and Differences With Tucson’s Auditor.”) •According to José Ibarra, a city council member,“The dual system is good for constituents because it provides checks and balances.”The board can act as a check on the auditor by the community to ensure that she is not operating as “just another government bureaucrat”rather than as a neutral but aggressive arbiter of complaints against the police. The auditor, in turn, provides the balance of ensuring that citizen complaints receive the C HAPTER 2: CASE S TUDIES OF N INE O VERSIGHT P ROCEDURES 66