[Peace] [geo-solidarity] Changes to Police Contract Come from “The Work of the Citizen”

[Ingbert Schmidt]

This is tremendous!

Congratulations all!

Ingbert




On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Brian Dolinar <briandolinar at gmail.com>wrote:

> Two out of three proposals presented two years ago by the grassroots
> organization, Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice (CUCPJ), were
> included in the police union contract approved by Champaign city council on
> Tuesday night, December 4, 2012.
>
>
>
> In April 2010, CUCPJ delivered<http://www.ucimc.org/content/cucpj-makes-proposals-champaign-police-union-contract-wake-kiwane-carrington-killing>their three proposals to city council with allies from the local NAACP,
> Ministerial Alliance, and Planner’s Network, a student group. They were put
> forward after widespread public outrage to the police killing of
> 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington on October 9, 2009. The recommendations to
> the police union contract were written with the help of members of the
> Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), who had recently won a contract
> after a two-day strike. They included: 1) a residency requirement for
> officers to live in the city of Champaign 2) drug testing of officers
> involved in incidents that result in death or great bodily harm, and 3)
> public access to complaints against police officers. The first two
> proposals, in some version, have made it into the new police union
> contract.
>
>
>
> In the new agreement, the city will offer a $3,000 to officers who move
> into the City of Champaign. If an officer fires their weapon, and there is
> injury to person or property, they must submit to an alcohol and drug test.
>
>
>
> In speaking before the city council on Tuesday night, Aaron Ammons, of
> CUCPJ, highlighted how these changes came from the community. “The work of
> the citizen,” he said, “is rarely, if ever, brought to light and
> appreciated in the way it should be.”
>
>
>
> Belden Fields, of CUCPJ, addressed the third proposal for access to police
> complaints. The group had been mistaken, he admitted, in asking for this in
> the police union contract. It’s not a bargaining issue,” he said, “It’s a
> legal issue.” As Fields has reported in *The* *Public i*<http://publici.ucimc.org/2012/11/a-tale-of-two-cities-public-access-to-police-complaints-in-champaign-and-urbana/>,
> the decision in the *Gekas v. Williamson *case by the Fourth District
> Appellate Court of Illinois, and two rulings from the Illinois Attorney
> General’s office, state clearly that complaints against police officers are
> public documents. The city of Champaign has refused to acknowledge the
> decisions and explain its current policy of withholding the names of
> officers in complaints. The city must disclose the names, Fields said, and
> adopt policy in line with the recent rulings.
>
>
>
> The City of Urbana is currently considering an ordinance putting such a
> policy in writing.
>
>
>
> For the *News-Gazette* article on the new police contract in Champaign gohere<http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2012-12-04/new-police-contract-draws-praise-champaign.html>.
>
>
>
> BD
> --
> Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
> 303 W. Locust St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
> briandolinar at gmail.com
>
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>
>


-- 
==========================================
Ingbert Schmidt
http://ingbert.org/     ||     skype/twitter/etc.: spacesoon

"Dream in a pragmatic way."
-Aldous Huxley
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