[Peace] REMINDER - TONITE AT 7PM!!!

[Ricky Baldwin]

REMINDER: Urbana NEEDS YOU tonight!!!

Tonight at 7pm the Urbana City Council is taking
citizen input at the start of its regular meeting on
the subject of establishing independent civilian
oversight of local law enforcement.
This is a PUBLIC HEARING.

A citizen police review board has been a key demand of
local civil liberties groups, African American groups
and others for over five years.  Now it finally has a
good chance of happening, but not without a fight. 
The police union, FOP, is currently entering contract
negotiations with the City and has staretd turning out
their boosters to criticize this proposal as somehow
anti-police, even though the FOP president as well as
the current police chief participated in months of
positive meetings as part of the Mayor’s Taskforce on
Citizen Police Review from October to June of this
year.  It was that taskforce that produced the draft
ordinance that the City Council will soon vote on.  It
is definitely NOT anti-police.

A citizen police review board would provide an
unbiased venue for area residents to lodge complaints
about the police, for ordinary citizens to hear those
complaints and review police policies.  A
determination by such a body could give both community
members and the police the satisfaction of knowing
that a credible, true third party had reviewed a given
case and found merit or lack of merit in a given
complaint – without the perceived bias of an internal
police investigation. The Coalition for Citizen Police
Review, a local group, sees this proposal as a means
of improving community-police relations and helping
restore some of the confidence in the system that has
been lost by distrust that has built up over the
years.  That has been the experience of dozens of
other cities, large and small, around the country that
have established independent citizen oversight of
their police departments – and many of the strongest
advocates of citizen oversight are former law
enforcement officers.

Please come tonight if you possibily can.  This is an
opportunity that Urbana should NOT miss.  We need to
hear the voice of reason.  We need to hear from Urbana
residents especially, but anyone is welcome.

For more info, call 328-3037.  And thanks in advance. 
We can do this!


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