Phoenix Police Civilian Review Board Gets Green Light

PHOENIX, AZ – The City Council on Tuesday approved civilian oversight of the Phoenix police that combines a new city agency and a community review board that will have the power to investigate complaints against police, recommend policy changes directly to the police chief and set up community outreach.

In a historic 5-4 vote, the council backed a proposal from council member Carlos Garcia to create the Office of Accountability and Transparency, comprised of city staff, and a Community Review Board that will recommend changes to the agency and conduct community forums.

The audience erupted into cheers after each council member recorded their vote and the results were announced. The decision came nearly five hours into the meeting and months after police-community relations in Phoenix reached a tipping point when a video of one family’s encounter with police went viral.

One after another, members of the public, many wearing yellow T-shirts that read “Cops Must Be Accountable to the People,” urged the council to support civilian oversight that’s independent of the police department, had investigative powers and was transparent to the public.

Alexandra Rodriguez, 17, said that youth care about this issue and want to be involved in decisions that affect residents. Young people are smart enough to make decisions that affect the entire city, such as joining the review board.

“We’re not stupid. We’re not stupid, community,” Rodriguez said. “We can be trained and hired to be part of this board.”

In the narrow vote, the council rejected a more moderate plan, referred to as Model A, to set up a “community relations board” and hire an ombudsman and staff to mediate complaints and monitor and audit Phoenix police investigations of major incidents.

Mayor Kate Gallego, who originally proposed that plan, flipped and backed the investigative plan after most of the 50 people who addressed the council said they would only support a system that was community driven and had investigative powers.

Many activists said they know that there are good officers on the police force, but it’s the bad ones who need to be addressed.

Tremikus Muhammad, of the Phoenix Local Organizing Committee for Justice or Else, said Gallego’s proposal showed the community what she thinks about them.

“It said a lot to us about what you think about us as a people and our justice and our pain,” he said as the crowd cheered. “You’re looking at people who are in pain but you know what the difference is? You haven’t felt the same pain that we feel.”

After he spoke, many of the audience started chanting: “Shut it down!”

Several called Model A “a slap in the face” to community organizations who had spent several months working with city officials on proposals offering transparency.

The president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association opposed both models.

“The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association cannot support any model that does not show how the entire Phoenix community, which includes Phoenix police officers, benefits,” Britt London told the council.

Still, he said after the vote, he does not see the plan as a loss. London said he hopes PLEA will be involved in the process.

The vote was a victory for Garcia, an activist elected last year on a platform of immigration and police reform.

“This is just the beginning,” a triumphant Garcia told the crowd outside council chambers after the vote.

Details about the new agency and review board will remain to be worked out, such as how much it will cost, how the board will choose members, and when it will get started.

The proposal that was rejected would have cost $1.7 million to $1.8 million a year for the ombudsman, staff and other expenses, according to a staff report.

That document also appeared to make the point the city could afford it, listing the city’s budget at $4.6 billion – about $721 million allocated to the police department. In addition, the report shows, staff said police settlements reached $26 million.

The Office of Accountability and transparency will work with a “community review board. ” The agency can send its own reports and police documents to community members while working closely with the board, which will review department policy and conduct community forums.

Police advocates have countered that law enforcement officers were too often undervalued and misunderstood for doing a job most people would find difficult to handle.

Council member Sal DiCiccio, a longtime police supporter who voted no, called the plan “the most radical, dangerous and extreme in the whole country” and said it will destroy the morale of the police department and put officers in danger.

Supporters said the plan is not to punish police who are doing their jobs well, but to curb over-aggression and bad behavior, and build community trust.

A video of a Phoenix police officer taking a baby from the arms of a mother last summer that drew national attention and apologies from the mayor and chief of police was the tipping point for protests, community and council meetings at which supporters of police reform complained about bad relationships and police abuse that stretched back for years.

In the video, police are seen approaching with guns drawn threatening to shoot the couple after their daughter walked out of a Family Dollar with a doll. Gallego and Police Chief Jeri Williams offered public apologies.

The Phoenix Police Department also has gained public attention for a record-breaking of 44 officer-involved shootings in 2018 – higher than those in Los Angeles and New York.

At council meetings this summer, members backed such reforms as the previously planned rollout of body cameras for the force and regular, internal audits of incidents where police officers used firearms.

Those meetings led to workshops and other staff research into several civilian review board systems, from Chandler and Tucson to Austin, Texas, and Denver.

Phoenix currently has a use-of-force and discipline review board, which consists of residents and was created by the police chief, according to a staff report.

Chandler has had citizen oversight over its police department since 2000. The Chandler model consists of a 15 citizen-member and six police staff panel that reviews all police shootings and incidents when direct physical force by the police results in serious injury or death. The panel acts in an advisory capacity to the chief of police and makes recommendations for training and discipline actions, according to Chandler.

During a series of city meetings, the members look at review-focused boards like San Antonio’s and Charlotte; audit/monitor focused like Tucson and Los Angeles and investigative like Newark, New Jersey, according to a city staff report.

By Jonmaesha Beltran, Cronkite News

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