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Engineless "Independent" Police Review Hires Staff, On October 1, the new police oversight board, the "Independent" Police Review (IPR), gained a director, Richard Rosenthal, a former deputy district attorney from Los Angeles. The City Auditor, Gary Blackmer, chose Rosenthal over 30 other applicants. When officially introduced to City Council on October 3, Rosenthal mentioned that in addition to prosecuting Rampart police corruption cases and acting as a liaison to police Internal Affairs in L.A., he also prosecuted cases against public officials. Mayor Katz seemed to find this last point amusing. Also present for confirmation by Council were the nine members of the IPR's new Citizen Review Committee (CRC): Hector Lopez, Ric Alexander, Bob Ueland, Denise Stone, Eric Terrell, Alice Shannon, T.J. Browning, Bryan Pollard, and Hank Miggins. The CRC members were chosen in September by a selection committee comprised of Blackmer and seven Citizen Advisors of the now- defunct Police Internal Investigations Auditing Committee (PIIAC). The selection committee screened 48 applicants through a scoring process that used three criteria (time commitment, objectivity, and community involvement), and interviewed 14 of those applicants. Finally, late in the evening of September 13, the committee identified the top nine applicants and discussed the diversity of those nine people. They decided that one Latino male, one European/Native American male, three Caucasian females, two Caucasian males and two African American males represented the diversity of the city. A few members voiced concerns that one of the applicants, Browning, had misrepresented herself. They also mentioned that her behavior during the deliberations of the Mayor's PIIAC work group during the summer of 2000 (see PPRs #21-22) troubled many of that group's eighteen members. The Advisors voted unanimously to ask Commissioner Hales, who had "sponsored" Browning, to reconsider his choice. The only person to vote against this motion, Blackmer, allegedly delivered the advisors' concerns to Hales. Apparently, the Commissioner decided to retain Browning as his choice. Many of the 39 applicants not chosen for the CRC appeared to have strong backgrounds that would have contributed significantly to the oversight process. Those backgrounds included experience in the criminal justice system, conflict resolution, mediation and diversity issues. The Advisors could have decided to replace Browning regardless of Hales' decision, since the IPR ordinance states only that City Council nominees "may be given preference" (emphasis ours). Unfortunately, this was not made clear at the final selection com-mittee meeting. Perhaps, before problems do arise, the CRC will institute a policy that permits members to be removed for incompetence, neglect of duty, misconduct or malfeasance. Copwatch called attention to these procedural issues. Members testified to Council that the IPR will most likely fail on its own merits, since it is already limited by its primarily audit-style structurea structure which depends on police investigation. It would be better to observe the implementation of this system, allowing it to reveal its weaknesses, than to risk its implosion over CRC personality conflicts. On the evening of October 23, the IPR held its first training meeting for the CRC members. Rosenthal introduced the new IPR staff members: Joseph De Angelis, case management specialist; Judi Taylor and Ben Panit, the intake coordinators (both retired Portland Police Internal Affairs Sergeants); former PIIAC Advisor Robert Wells, research assistant; and former PIIAC Examiner and former Hillsboro reserve police officer Mike Hess, the "civilian" investigatoralso referred to as the "deputy director." The City Attorney for the Auditor's office, Linly Rees, discussed the IPR's standard of review as well as public meeting laws, and announced that she will be attending CRC meetings to help give legal advice. (Rosenthal, although an attorney, does not currently have a license to practice law in Oregon.) Rees' help is problematic since the City Attorney's office also represents the police during civil litigation. During her explanation of the review standard, Rees referred to the new City Code for the definition of "Supported by the Evidence" (Section 3.21.020 R), which reads: "A finding regarding a complaint is supported by the evidence when a reasonable person could make the finding in light of the evidence, whether or not the reviewing body agrees with the finding." This may give the review board a narrow window in which to challenge the findings of IAD: If they think a "reasonable person" could conclude that no misconduct occurred based on the evidence IAD gathers, they cannot challenge the finding. On the other hand, Copwatch pointed out that the code allows for new evidence to be brought before the CRC when a citizen files an appeal. On the record, Rosenthal said he thought that ability means the CRC can send a case back for further investigation before suggest-ing that City Council change the finding. There is nothing in the ordinance which allows the CRC to take such action, but if the Director says they can do it, we expect the members to take him up on it. Rosenthal announced that the staff was working on language for the City Code regarding "what kind of review the IPR will do of shootings and deaths in custody if any." When challenged, he indicated that the IPR does intend to include language in the code regarding the review of those cases. The IPR ordinance states: "The Auditor is to propose code by December 31, 2001 for reviewing police shootings and deaths in police custody."
It appears that the police will have the upper hand in providing training for the CRC. The Citizens will do officer ride-alongs. Training officers gave them "use of force" presentations in private sessions and police detectives explained IAD procedures on November 6. The same evening the ACLU is scheduled to present information, the Portland Police Association (PPA) will also give a talk. It was suggested during the public input session that the CRC members receive training from a civilian investigator (regarding proper investigative procedures) to balance the IAD investigators' input. Since the IPR is responsible for reviewing the IAD, the Internal Affairs training could be used to bias the CRC board members toward believing that unprofessional techniques are acceptable and commonplace. Several members responded favorably to a reminder that public hearings should be held to discuss policies and other concerns, such as police shootings. The committee seems to want to take public input, but doesn't want its hearings to stretch on for hours.
At the CRC's November 6 meeting, Rosenthal announced that he and the Auditor had selected Lopez as Chair and Ueland as Vice Chair to serve until the end of the year, when the CRC members will establish a selection process. Ueland stated that he and Lopez had selected a third member, Hank Miggins, as their "recorder" and they had established the "Executive Work Group." Not only was this committee created and its first meeting held out of the public eye, but attorney Rees seemed to imply it was being called a "work group" to deliberately avoid compliance with public meetings laws. After Copwatch members raised concerns, the next "Executive" meeting was announced for November 15, a weekday, at 10 AM. We will continue to attend the general CRC meetings, which are held first and third Tuesday evenings in the Rose Room at City Hall. We encourage more citizens of Portland to let the Citizen Review Committee know what the community expects of its police and its police review board. At press time, the IPR was still deferring complaints to Internal Affairs, but the IPR office can be reached at 503-823-0146. |
December, 2001
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#25 Table of Contents
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