[Cprb] Santa Cruz Lays Waste To Police Oversight - santa cruz indymedia: newswire/2959

Mark Halfmoon was the chairman of the Santa Cruz CPRB before it was disbanded.

John



   News:
   Santa Cruz Lays Waste To Police Oversight
   by Mark Halfmoon
   Email: markhalfmoon (at) yahoo.com (unverified!) 28 Jan 2003

   ...

   "Progressive" CA City Lays Waste To Police Oversight
   Mark Halfmoon, Chair
   CPRB In Exile

   On Tuesday, January 28th, the Santa Cruz City Council
   will most likely vote to repeal the ordinance that
   created the Citizen's Police Review Board (CPRB) in
   1994. Mayor Emily Reilly and other council members
   believe that the board is ineffective and a waste of
   money. They claim that the city can save $90,000 to
   $120,000 per year by doing away with the CPRB and that
   due to a current budget crisis Santa Cruz can no
   longer afford what they see as a non-essential
   program. Some of the council members say that they
   support the idea of citizen oversight of the police
   but that it could be done cheaper by using an
   "auditor" model.

   Some members of the board feel that indeed the CPRB is
   ineffective because of how it was created. When a
   person makes a complaint about police policies,
   procedures, practices and individual behavior, it
   immediately goes to the Police Department's own
   Internal Affairs (IA) investigator where it often
   languishes for months while it's being investigated.
   The police conduct interviews with the complainant,
   officers involved and witnesses. The investigator
   eventually makes a recommendation to the chief or
   deputy chief and one of them makes a "finding." The
   complaint, IA recommendation and finding are then
   forwarded to the CPRB for review. The board then, at
   its next monthly meeting, in closed session, attempts
   to make a finding of its own.

   What is wrong with this process is that the CPRB has
   only the report by the police themselves to use in
   determining whether they collectively or individually
   have harassed, abused or violated a citizen's rights.
   Needless to say, there is a tendency by police
   officers to downplay the wrongdoing of a
   brother/sister officer even to the point of convenient
   amnesia and "mistakes" made in the report.
   The fact that CPRB findings correspond to the findings
   of the chief in the majority of complaints (usually
   exonerating the subject officer) is not an indication
   that there was no police wrongdoing. But, given the
   restrictive rules of the CPRB ordinance, an honest
   person, unknowingly misled by overwhelming evidence
   provided by only one side in a dispute (which almost
   always discredits the other side) has no choice but to
   agree with it.

   The repeating patterns we see of infractions elevated
   to violence and arrest and the too-tight handcuffs
   complaints excused by IA seems to indicate that people
   who complain about police are either all hotheads and
   liars or that there are some hotheads and liars on the
   force. The "lurching at officers" as a justifiable
   pretext to violent police "reaction" are just too damn
   common and not credible to myself, and to other
   members of the CPRB. But, because of the repressively
   restrictive review process, we find ourselves helpless
   under the current ordinance to do little more than
   make policy recommendations to the city council, City
   Manager and Police Chief. Based on our experience of
   trying to address problems in this manner, it appears
   that our recommendations are gathering dust in "file
   13."

   After studying complaints and talking with would-be
   complainants who are too intimidated to challenge the
   police and are afraid the CPRB is too weak to protect
   them from police retribution, the chair and vice-chair
   have found that, yes, racially biased and class biased
   policing (profiling) does exist in Santa Cruz.

   After reviewing the claims against the city related to
   police mistreatment we have found that Santa Cruz can
   not afford to not have vigorous citizen oversight. To
   African-Americans, Latinos, the poor and teens citizen
   oversight of the police is an essential public safety
   function. If money is being wasted on the CPRB it is
   because the city gave it no power to seriously address
   police abuse. It was crafted to be a "rubber stamp"
   on the police-biased findings of the chief. The City
   Manager, City Council and the Chief of Police have
   failed repeatedly to consider recommendations from the
   board. They have, more often than not, not even
   responded to our requests.

   How can the council honestly claim that they can save
   up to $120,000 a year when the board only has an
   annual budget of $83,000? As Council Member Mike
   Rotkin is quoted as saying in a recent Metro Santa
   Cruz story, "no amount of playing funny games with
   money" by claiming that the excess $37,000 is from
   incidental and overhead costs, will help the council's
   credibility on this matter.

   The council's much favored "auditor" model requires the
   hiring of a qualified professional, working full time
   with staff assistance. I submit, after much study and
   consultation with professionals in the field of
   oversight, that it is impossible to attain an
   effective auditor system for less than the CPRB's
   current meager budget.

   Berkeley has twice the population of Santa Cruz, less
   than twice the police officers and more than three
   times the budget for police oversight. If there is
   indeed a budget crisis, (never a budget crisis for
   police, jails and military) maybe the city can scrape
   some change off of the $15,000,000 per year police
   budget. Are abandoned vehicles such a big problem in
   the city that the $114,000 allotted to the cops for
   "vehicle abatement" can be considered one of those
   essential public safety programs that cannot be cut or
   reduced? How about the nearly one million dollar
   "community relations" portion of the police budget?
   Is all of that essential too?

   As I asked Chief Belcher, if you say you are committed
   to buying a new police car and the price for one is
   thirty thousand dollars, are you really serious about
   getting one if you will only offer $750 to the dealer?
   Last year city employees complained to the SCPD that
   one of their officers drew a loaded weapon on a pair
   of 12-year olds at the Teen Center. The police told
   them that nothing improper had occurred. The two kids
   were black and Latino and "resembled gang members."

   Santa Cruz needs police oversight. People on the CPRB
   have become experts on it. If the city is going to
   disband its Citizen's Police Review Board, have
   something effective be there in its place. Let the
   board members who have been working (volunteering) at
   least 20 to 40 hours a week in addition to their
   regular jobs for the past year studying citizen police
   oversight models give the advice and direction to the
   city they were appointed to give.

   At least give them the courtesy and respect of
   consulting with them, returning their phone calls or
   even letting them know that they are being disbanded
   before they are informed by TV news reporters with
   cameras rolling.


Comments

   Chair Halfmoon pushed to reign in selective enforcement
   by Becky Johnson
   becky_johnson (at) sbcglobal.net (unverified) 31 Jan 2003

   Kudos to Mark Halfmoon for his sincere efforts to steer an unwieldy
   CPRB towards more effective review of police conduct. I can't help but
   wonder, if the more activist board of the past year was not the true
   reason the CPRB appeared suddenly on the chopping block?

   I'd encourage anyone who is distressed over the killing of the
   Citizens Police Review Board to call Mayor Emily Reilly at 420-5017
   and ask her why she is acted so quickly and with such little
   forethought to facilitate (by placing on the agenda) the killing of
   the Citizens Police Review Board.

   Ask her if the police budget of $15,000,000 per year is sacrosanct
   while the $83,000 per year of police oversight is totally disposable.