[Cprb] A little history of the Coalition for Citizen Police Review

[John Wason]

Now that Ricky Baldwin is on board, I thought it would be a good idea to
recapitulate for everyone something of the history of our CPRB coalition to
date, and the reasons why it came into existence.  Below is a copy of the
reply I sent to Jen Walling, in response to several questions asked by
Dave, a guy she knows who is involved in student government at UIUC.

John

**********

>>So I'm just going to freestyle some questions about this police program you 
>>are running.

>>1)  What was the inspiration for its creation... specific or nonspecific...?

This is the easiest one.  Sometime in 2000 Gregory Brown, a mentally
retarded white guy, was beaten to death by Champaign police in an alley at
about 3 AM for what was regarded as questionable behavior; he was sort of
loitering around in the alley, and didn't want to talk to the police
because he was afraid of them.  When they investigated themselves, the
Champaign police concluded that Brown, who was overweight, had had a heart
attack which killed him, and the beating he received from the police had
nothing to do with it.  The State's Attorney affirmed this conclusion, and
nothing further was done about it.  There was a bit of community concern
and two or three articles were written about it in the News-Gazette, then
it died down and was forgotten by most folks.

On May 1, 2001, Tim Gibbs and Laura Anderson, two white Urbana residents
who were at the time involved with the School for Designing a Society, were
arrested by the Urbana police for having the audacity to insist that they
had the right to merely stand (at a safe distance) and watch while the
police stopped some young black men in a car.  They were charged with
obstruction of justice or something similar, and taken to jail overnight,
while (ironically) the young black men were not arrested.  Not wishing to
hire lawyers and go through the hassle of contesting the arrest, they went
through some sort of "diversionary" program that the court system offers.
Kinda like choosing driving school and "court supervision" when you get a
traffic ticket.

Meanwhile the NAACP and the Urban League had in 1998 tried very hard to get
a Citizen Police Review Board started in the city of Champaign.  Despite
the recommendation of a CPRB by the Champaign Human Relations Commission,
the City Council and mayor failed to create one.  All they did was to
require that the police chief furnish an annual report to the city about
arrests, race of arrestees, arrests per district in the city, etc.  The
first of the annual reports was actually forthcoming in about 2001 or 2002.
 I have it; it's presumably public information.

Meanwhile, we Greens, in the course of deciding whom to support in the
Champaign and Urbana City Council elections (in early 2001?), came up with
a list of questions to ask the candidates.  We incorporated into our
questionnaire a question for all the candidates about whether they
supported a CPRB in their community.  If I remember correctly, 5 of the 7
current Urbana city council members stated that they supported it - at
least in theory, as we've subsequently found out.  The Champaign
candidates, who mostly didn't reply to our questionnaire at all, were much
less enthusiastic.

So in May of 2001 I attended meetings of both the Champaign and the Urbana
Human Relations Commissions, basically on my own, and made little speeches
about the need for CPRB's.  Tim Gibbs and Laura Anderson were kind enough
to go to the Urbana HRC meeting, along with a few other concerned citizens,
mostly from the IMC, and Tim told his story to the Commission.

Also in May of 2001, I attended a NAACP meeting with Laurel Prussing and
one other person - maybe Cope Cumpston, who was on the Urbana HRC and
interested in a CPRB.  Both women are Greens, I believe, and also members
of the NAACP.  We asked if the NAACP was willing to work with us in forming
some sort of CPRB coalition, thinking that an alliance of black and white
citizens would stand a better chance of getting something done than either
group alone.  Besides, the black community has all sorts of tales about
police abuse that we in the white community never hear about.  (I might add
that the university community probably does, too.) 

Cleveland Jefferson agreed to let us use the NAACP offices for our
meetings, and he was present at just about all of them until his recent
demise there.  Thus a little coalition was born.  There were about 4
Greens, one or two other concerned citizens, and Cleveland Jefferson.  The
Urban League sent a representative to one or two of our early meetings, but
appeared to be basically uninterested in being active in our efforts.  Tom
Betz of the ACLU also attended a meeting or two.

Later in 2001 (I'd have to look up the date), a man named Lonnie Fourman
had the audacity to videotape an arrest being made by the Urbana police in
southeast Urbana.  When the police shouted at him or something, he ran into
his apartment and locked the door.  The police kicked down his door without
any sort of warrant and arrested him, charging him also with "obstruction
of justice" and about 3 other crimes.  Once they had charged him, they
obtained a search warrant for his apartment, seized his video camera and
tape, then released him without pursuing the criminal charges.  Obviously
all they wanted was the tape.  Fourman was terrified, and took no action
that I know of other than maybe to move away from Urbana.  The incident
made the TV news on one network channel, but was otherwise hushed up.  I
went to his apartment several times, trying to corroborate the information,
but could never find anyone home, or at least no one answered my knocks.

Our coalition of about 6 people has labored along, meeting together
regularly since the summer of 2001, doing a great deal of research, writing
a proposal and a model ordinance, meeting with the mayor of Urbana and 6 of
the 7 Urbana city council members (Joe Whelan wouldn't meet with us), and
doing a preliminary contact of community groups.  I'm the only member of
the original coalition who is still active in it as of this moment, and
"active" would be a slight overstatement.  :-)  Some new Greens have gotten
involved, and we've created a brochure and a sample complaint form.  We'd
be delighted to have people other than Greens involved; the more the
"merrier".

Both the Champaign and the Urbana Human Relations Commissions have
recommended to their respective city councils that a CPRB be created - the
Champaign HRC has recommended it twice since 1998 - but the city councils
haven't done anything about it.  I think the Urbana City Council would be
open to it if (a) we could show broad community support, and (b) it didn't
cost a great deal of money.

That's pretty much where we stand currently.  There have been no recent
instances  of gross police abuse THAT I KNOW ABOUT.


>>2)  How long has it been running

See above.


>>3)  What would you say is the sample group of your surveying/what methods
have 
>>you used to elicit responses

I'm not sure what Dave means here.  We spoke personally with the Urbana
officials, and sent letters to the community organizations.  As for
instances of local police abuse, we have no empirical evidence, just
anecdotal.  And we do have the Champaign police chief's report, which _of
course_ shows a higher rate of arrests in north Champaign but _of course_
is unable to pinpoint WHY.


>>4)  What have been your results so far

Not sure what he's asking again.  See above.


>>5)  How strongly does this relate to Green Party political agenda and in
what 
>>way 

It's one of a number of "planks" in the local (and state and national, I
believe) Green Party's "platform" of issues that we think are important.


>>6)  What is the anticipated use of your results

This is all too college-studenty to me.  This isn't a class assignment,
it's real life, and could be literally life or death for some citizen.  We
desire the creation and implementation of CPRB's in Champaign and Urbana,
and maybe in the county and the university.  While I understand the value
of empirical research, we don't have the resources to do it, and it's
difficult - for me, at least - to imagine how to go about empirically
isolating the reasons for police behavior or the efficacy of CPRB's in
other communities.  Dr. Samuel Walker has done a great deal of research in
the field and has written books on the subject.  Much information can be
found on the web.  I'm not going to summarize all the research here; I'll
just say that Dr. Walker, the ACLU, and even the U.S. Dept. of Justice are
all in favor of independent, autonomous citizen police review boards, IF
they are supported by the police and the community, as an important and
valuable PART of the response to police abuse.


>>7)  If your results are as you expect, what actions do you plan on taking to
>>achieve a response from local or university police?

I don't understand the question again.  We'd be delighted to talk with the
police chiefs of Champaign and Urbana, as well as the university's police
chief.  Most police chiefs are skeptical at best, and most police unions
are resistant to the concept of citizens policing them.  Ultimately, it's
the city council, not the police themselves, that has to create a CPRB.

I'd be happy to respond to any more questions that Dave has, or to talk to
him in person.  And of course anyone else on our current CPRB mailing list
is free to jump in at any time.