[Cprb] No CPRB meeting this week; go to city council.

[J. Wason]

At 09:20 PM 03/22/04 -0600, Walling, Jennifer wrote:

>Hi Everyone,  
>
>Just making sure you all know that tomorrow, you should go to the
Champaign City >Council meeting on tasers.  The next CPRB meeting will be
next Tuesday, Mar. 30 at >7 PM.  
>
>-Jen

Well, no one from our current Coalition for Citizen Police Review was there
except me from the Greens and Catherine Hogue from the NAACP....unless our
Coalition has some new members I haven't met yet.  Carl Estabrook was also
there from the Greens/AWARE, and there were several other AWARE people
there.  Also a number of African Americans of all persuasions, of course.
Carl and I spoke, as did some of the AWARE people and a number of the
African Americans representing various constituencies.  A surprising number
of speakers (including Carl and me) related the taser issue to the issue of
community-based policing in general and to Citizen Police Review Boards in
particular.  Only one speaker - the lone police officer to speak other than
the Police Chief - spoke in favor of buying the tasers.

There was also a big block of intimidating-looking off-duty (and some
on-duty) police officers there, some with their wives or girlfriends, all
wearing big buttons saying "Support Our Police".  The implication was that
supporting the police was synonymous with supporting the purchase of
tasers, much like supporting our troops in Iraq is considered by some to be
synonymous with supporting the war in Iraq.

In the end the city council persons were asked for their comments.  All
expressed some degree of appreciation for the public input, except for
Mayor Schweighart, who seemed incensed and said in essence that the city's
police officers should think twice the next day before "serving and
protecting" such an ungrateful community.

As for their tentative votes, Giraldo Rosales, Kathy Ennen, J.W. Pirtle,
and, in a circumlocuitous way, Mike LaDue, all said they would vote against
tasers.  On the other hand, Vic McIntosh, Jim Green, Ken Pirok, and of
course Schweighart all said they'd vote in favor of purchasing tasers.  So
the tie-breaking vote, it appears, goes to Tom Bruno, who wasn't present
last night.  It's a real cliffhanger.  Stay tuned.

John