Canary in the mine: The CPRC, mental health and Brown
Listening to Riverside City Manager Brad Hudson's comments about the proposed mental health intervention program that is being developed for the police department, it was interesting to hear how many references he made to the fatal officer-involved shooting of a Black mentally ill man that happened just over a year ago.
Hudson had said that the program wouldn't be fully realized until after the Community Police Review Commission returned with its decision on that shooting and whether or not it found that the officers involved violated the department's use of force policy during the incident. Whatever finding the CPRC makes probably won't make any difference as had been proven already in the Summer Lane case, not because it conflicted with the final disposition but because the city manager's office removed itself from that process entirely. On that note, it was surprising to hear Hudson make these statements now connecting the Lee Deante Brown case with the CPRC and mental health.
What would be more surprising is if the rumors are true in that Hudson also made statements that he believed the CPRC may place the city at risk of civic liability. It would be odd indeed if Hudson had been bold enough to make those statements if this is what he truly believes and it doesn't seem likely. However, it would go a long way towards explaining a lot of what's been going on with the CPRC in recent months if it is true.
Tying the Brown shooting to mental health intervention issues was something that Chief Russ Leach had done within days of the shooting last April at community meetings that he had attended to listen to concerns and solicit assistance from mental health professionals. People applauded him for taking that initiative at the time.
However, not long after that came months of quiet on this issue, although there apparently was some action going on behind the scenes in terms of researching different approaches and models of crisis mental health intervention with very little information about it being disseminated to the public during that time.
Then came several months where very little or nothing was done beginning June or July when the department was in a period of transition at its top level after staffing changes were made that impacted the department's personnel and training division. The mental health issue resurfaced months later at a public safety committee meeting in January when it was included in a power point presentation given by Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis on proposed changes to the Community Police Review Commission.
Community members were a bit surprised to see it again, actually they were amazed. After all, the mental health intervention issue had not even been listed on the agenda for the public safety committee meeting, but hidden away in a couple of paragraphs inside a quarterly report on the CPRC that is customarily written by the executive director. However, since there wasn't one, DeSantis apparently put one together probably before supervising the shelving of books at the local library and trying to create an "at will" management team at the police department.
Some people saw its inclusion in the report as a carrot on a stick to attract support for the actions apparently taken involving the CPRC over the holiday months. Others were just so amazed that it was included on an agenda to be discussed at all even in a backhanded way that they really didn't know what to say.
From the city council, there hasn't been much discussion about the development of a mental health crisis program in the police department, but then there hasn't been much discussion of the department unless there's crowds of people from the community and inside the department down at the meetings.
One exception has been Councilman Andrew Melendrez who has taken the initiative to move discussion of it to the public safety committee which he currently chairs. It was his idea to bring it back within 90 days after the initial meeting in January. Interestingly enough, Melendrez's son, Aurelio is an officer with the police department.
Now Hudson is talking about the Brown shooting in tandem with the need for a mental health intervention program in the police department, a development that is surprising to say the least. It appeared that the city could be admitting that the two officers if they had been provided with additional resources associated with mental health intervention could have exercised different options in responding to the situation with Brown especially in the first few seconds of encountering him.
Hudson said that mental health professionals often learn that it's not the wisest course of action to immediately approach an individual who is mentally ill if they are not engaging in violent behavior, because if a person is agitated one moment, they might be a different person by the next. Police officers often want to have the situation resolved in several minutes which may work better in some situations than others, particularly those involving mentally ill people where tactics which may work in other situations may have a detrimental effect on them.
That's an interesting observation coming from an unexpected source and one that's been raised by many mental health experts in light of mental health issues in general and tragic incidents like the Brown shooting in particular. It's also been raised by police officers in departments across the country who have dealt with the same issues. Riverside is a bit behind the curve when it comes to developing a crisis mental health intervention program in its police department.
Still, the city manager's office and perhaps some city council members pulling strings behind the scenes have been more interested in changing how the CPRC does its investigations of officer-involved deaths than in the issues arising from the most recent incidents.
The CPRC began its own investigation of the shooting immediately after it had happened. This will probably be one of the last investigations conducted by the CPRC that will be truly independent during this era in Riverside's history. And the investigation of the shooting death of Joseph Darnell Hill will probably be the last one where the CPRC will be able to dispatch its own investigator to interview witnesses without as Councilman Steve Adams said, threat of arrest from the police department and the Riverside County District Attorney's office as one or both of these agencies will likely prohibit the CPRC from conducting its own investigation the next time until these agencies have completed their own inquiries six months, a year or more than that later.
But then the handling of the Brown shooting by the police department and at City Hall by both the city manager's office and the city attorney's office is unprecedented in the history of similar incidents at least in this century if not the last one. Being on the receiving end of reports of comments made by city department heads on the rumor mill simply for paying attention is not exactly a new experience either. The city climate has indeed changed in the last six months and the Brown shooting may prove to be part of the reason why.
The city's litigation division has had a busy year as well which may be driving some concerns inside City Hall.
The year just completed saw the number of wrongful death lawsuits involving the police department increase tremendously, from a litigation rate of about 16% preceding the 2004 shooting death of Summer Lane to the 80% that exists today, a number that will increase if Hill's family members file a lawsuit. Lawsuits have so far been filed in the incustody deaths of Lane, Terry Rabb, Brown and Douglas Steven Cloud.
Before the filing of the lawsuit in the Lane case in early 2006, the last civil lawsuit filed in connection with an incustody death was one involving the shooting Anastacio Munoz in 2002.
It's pretty hard not to notice the difference that a few years makes and indeed many people have, and just as the number of incustody deaths especially shootings had increased last year, so has the city and police department's attitudes that now is a good time to change the operations of the CPRC including those which impact its ability to investigate any death of a civilian that arises from the direct or indirect action of a police officer, a power that is included in the city's charter.
The CPRC is currently drafting its final report on the Brown shooting, and when it's completed that task, it will go into closed session and deliberate on a finding.
The anniversary of the Brown shooting passed on Tuesday, and the 365 day timeline on the shooting as established by the state's
G.C. 3304(d). The police department, city manager's office and city attorney's office have spent the past few months playing around a lot with this legal provision, by defining it and redefining it and publicly chiding anyone who questions their interpretation of this particular provision of the state's peace officer bill of rights. Their tool of choice is the straw man argument involving the issue of there being no statue of limitations on the criminal investigation due to the nature of the charges that would be filed if enough evidence supported that.
The criminal investigation appears to be separate from the governmental code which appears through the choice of language used to apply only to administrative investigations conducted by law enforcement agencies. It's only the intermingling of the two types of investigations in Riverside's police department plus the practice by the department's internal affairs division of conducting administrative reviews in lieu of independent investigations under policy, #4.12 that complicates the issue in this city.
(excerpt)
(d) Except as provided in this subdivision and subdivision (g), no punitive action, nor denial of promotion on grounds other than merit, shall be undertaken for any act, omission, or other allegation of misconduct if the investigation of the allegation is not completed within one year of the public agency's discovery by a person authorized to initiate an investigation of the allegation of an act, omission, or other misconduct.
This one-year limitation period shall apply only if the act, omission, or other misconduct occurred on or after January 1, 1998. In the event that the public agency determines that discipline may be taken, it shall complete its investigation and notify the public safety officer of its proposed disciplinary action within that year, except in any of the following circumstances:
Alert 2003: 365 day statutory period
Alert 2005: 365 day statutory period
Initially, the police department and city attorney told the CPRC that the 365 statutory period didn't begin to toll until after misconduct had been uncovered during the investigation, which isn't what the text of the law states but according to one of the above memos, is a rather liberal interpretation of the code courtesy of the State Court of Appeals. However, at the March 28 meeting, City Attorney Gregory Priamos changed his argument and said that the timeline had been waived because civil litigation had been filed against the city in relation to the Brown case and didn't even mention the prior reason for ditching the timeline at all.
And it's true that ongoing civil litigation is one of the exceptions provided under G.C. 3304(d). It's also true that the litigation in question had been going on for months before it was used as a reason to waive the timeline by the city attorney's office.
(excerpt)
(6) If the investigation involves a matter in civil litigation where the public safety officer is named as a party defendant, the one-year time period shall be tolled while that civil action is pending.
However, it's extremely unlikely that the department is going to wait until after the litigation is resolved potentially years down the line to decide whether or not the involved officers will be disciplined.
What provides an interesting contrast with the Brown case is the situation that arose in 2005 when there was furor in the Lane case by the CPRC to reach a finding by the first anniversary of the shooting. However in this situation, none of these same individuals representing the city came forward to reassure them that there was no need to be concerned in that case about the timeline. Nor did representatives from either the city or the police department rush forward to reassure the commission in the case of the Rabb shooting which was decided by the CPRC nearly a month after its first anniversary when commissioners and then executive director, Pedro Payne raised similar concerns about the timeline.
Out of nine incustody deaths that have been the subject of findings by the CPRC so far, seven of these decisions were made within 365 days of the original incident. The two that weren't were the incustody deaths of Rabb in 2005 and Volne Lamont Stokes in 2003. In the Stokes case, it took the CPRC nearly two years to issue its final finding, in large part due to complications and delays that occurred
It's all moot because Hudson had told the public safety committee at a meeting in November 2006 that Chief Russ Leach didn't wait for findings from the CPRC before determining whether or not to take actions involving his officers, if something "egregious" had happened. Only, apparently the CPRC and Leach had disagreements about what that word meant in the Lane case. Hudson blamed his failure to act on that case as a result of him only being the city manager for a short while(about six months) and said if the situation involving the Lane shooting repeated itself, he would act differently without really explaining what that meant.
So with some heavy intervention by the trio of executive directors now heading the office where the CPRC is located, the CPRC is currently drafting its final report on the Brown shooting so that the city can close the door on it with a huge sigh of collective relief and move on to figuring out how to deal with the Cloud and Hill shootings which will be up on deck at the CPRC in a matter of months.
Officer-Involved Shooting Final Summary Report
Deceased: Lee Deante Brown, Black male, 31 years old
Officer: Terry Ellefson
Date/Time of Incident: April 3, 2006 at 1:58 p.m.
Location: Parking lot of the Welcome Inn of America, University and Ottawa
The final working draft of the Warnberg investigative report was crafted by Acting CPRC manager Mario Lara with assistance from his employer, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis. There were numerous changes to several sections particularly involving the trajectory analysis without any written explanation of the source of information particularly that added in close proximity to that given by experts commissioned to contribute information to the report by Investigator Butch Warnberg.
Either Lara or DeSantis, as it's often hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, said that the new information was added after discussions with Warnberg, whose firm the Baker Street Group may or may not be the investigative firm utilized by the city in the future.
This just in from the Legislative Bulletin released by the California Newspaper Publishers' Association.
League committees oppose police transparency bill
Two committees that report to the Board of Directors of the League of California Cities have voted to oppose legislation that would overturn the Supreme Court decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court and restore public access to civil service and police commission hearings and records associated with police misconduct.
In Copley Press the high court determined that records associated with the appeal of discipline imposed on a peace officer was exempt from public access. Although the court expressly declined to address the issue of civil service hearings, the ruling has resulted in the closure of civil service and police boards and commissions throughout the state.
CNPA governmental affairs staff and a representative of the ACLU appeared before the League’s Public Safety and Employee Relations Committees in support of AB 1648 by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and, although it was not on the agenda, in support of SB 1019 by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). Both bills would overturn Copley Press and establish a public right of access to confirmed instances of serious misconduct.
Both committees were quite candid in their hostility toward the bill and even more pronounced in their hostility toward newspapers. Here is a sampling of comments at the meetings: release of information would threaten the safety of peace officers and their families; release of confirmed discipline about a particular peace officer would make that officer less effective and less trustworthy in the eyes of community; newspapers are biased against law enforcement; newspapers get the facts wrong all the time and are simply not trustworthy; newspapers publish allegations but never exonerations; newspapers publish “half-truths” and always focus on the bad and never the good; the internal discipline process works fine; most police are hard working and honest.
Because both committees overwhelmingly voted to oppose, the recommendations go on the League Board’s consent calendar, even though there is a chance that some local agencies – San Francisco, Berkeley and perhaps Los Angeles – may decide to support one or both bills.
Not surprising given that the cities involved probably do not want the members of the public to know when police officers have allegations that are sustained after being investigated. Why?
Because if any of these officers are involved in major incidents including onduty shootings or ones where excessive force is alleged, then the involved parties may use this information to bolster any civil litigation they might file against any of these cities that belong to the League. It's just about civic liability, risk management and money, given how much money some of the member cities are paying out in verdicts, settlements and litigating costs on civil lawsuits annually.
In Chicago, the issue of civilian review boards has been a popular one, not surprisingly given the national coverage of several videotaped beatings by off-duty police officers against members of the public at local bars. The Daily Southtown newspaper published an article detailing a recent study that was done and the city's reaction to it.
Study: Police abuse goes unpunished
This study was conducted by a University of Chicago professor concluded that the Chicago Police Department was incapable of investigating allegations of misconduct within its ranks and that a civilian review mechanism should be created and implemented to perform that task.
(excerpt)
The study was conducted by University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman and the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based company that works on social justice projects.
“The way in which CPD investigates police abuse is a joke,” Futterman said. “If the CPD investigated civilian crime in the same way it investigates police abuse, they’d never solve a case.”
He wasn't exaggerating.
According to his study out of 10,000 complaints filed, action was only taken in about 19 of them. Officers are never interviewed about the allegations 85% of the time and that there were about 662 officers who had received 10 or more complaints between 2001-2006. About 2,450 more officers received between four and 10 complaints during that same time period.
Not surprisingly, public trust in the complaint process in Chicago is about nonexistent, one major reason why there's a push by the city's residents for a civilian review board.
In Colton, California, Police Chief Kenneth Rulon who had been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation discovered that he won't be coming back to work after City Manager Darryl Parrish terminated his contract.
Rulon had alleged that he was being investigated because he had taken allegations of misconduct involving a former city councilman to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office. In an April 5 article in the Press Enterprise, Parrish defended his actions.
(excerpt)
"There is absolutely no truth to those allegations," Parrish said in a statement, referring to the claims that Rulon was the driving force behind former Councilman Ramon Hernandez's arrest on suspicion of misusing city funds.
"Mr. Rulon did not initiate the investigation, and he was not retaliated against for submitting evidence collected by City staff to the District Attorney's office."
City officials claimed in the article that among other things, it was the Colton Police Officers Association's no confidence vote against him, which was 83-6. Soon after that vote, some of the dissenters came forword with allegations that they were being harassed by members of the association that had supported Rulon's ouster. The president of the COPA, Det. Wes Bruhn denied that there was anything going on. At the time that Rulon was placed on administrative leave, there was an ongoing investigation of allegations made against him by police officers that he had retaliated against them for complaining about his actions.
The results of Parrish's investigation into Rulon's conduct was not made public, something that frustrated at least one elected official, Councilman Richard DeLaRosa.
(excerpt)
"It's unfortunate that the mayor and the council are left in the dark," DeLaRosa said. "At this point, of course, that leaves the community in the dark regarding what the cause for this termination was."
Hudson had said that the program wouldn't be fully realized until after the Community Police Review Commission returned with its decision on that shooting and whether or not it found that the officers involved violated the department's use of force policy during the incident. Whatever finding the CPRC makes probably won't make any difference as had been proven already in the Summer Lane case, not because it conflicted with the final disposition but because the city manager's office removed itself from that process entirely. On that note, it was surprising to hear Hudson make these statements now connecting the Lee Deante Brown case with the CPRC and mental health.
What would be more surprising is if the rumors are true in that Hudson also made statements that he believed the CPRC may place the city at risk of civic liability. It would be odd indeed if Hudson had been bold enough to make those statements if this is what he truly believes and it doesn't seem likely. However, it would go a long way towards explaining a lot of what's been going on with the CPRC in recent months if it is true.
Tying the Brown shooting to mental health intervention issues was something that Chief Russ Leach had done within days of the shooting last April at community meetings that he had attended to listen to concerns and solicit assistance from mental health professionals. People applauded him for taking that initiative at the time.
However, not long after that came months of quiet on this issue, although there apparently was some action going on behind the scenes in terms of researching different approaches and models of crisis mental health intervention with very little information about it being disseminated to the public during that time.
Then came several months where very little or nothing was done beginning June or July when the department was in a period of transition at its top level after staffing changes were made that impacted the department's personnel and training division. The mental health issue resurfaced months later at a public safety committee meeting in January when it was included in a power point presentation given by Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis on proposed changes to the Community Police Review Commission.
Community members were a bit surprised to see it again, actually they were amazed. After all, the mental health intervention issue had not even been listed on the agenda for the public safety committee meeting, but hidden away in a couple of paragraphs inside a quarterly report on the CPRC that is customarily written by the executive director. However, since there wasn't one, DeSantis apparently put one together probably before supervising the shelving of books at the local library and trying to create an "at will" management team at the police department.
Some people saw its inclusion in the report as a carrot on a stick to attract support for the actions apparently taken involving the CPRC over the holiday months. Others were just so amazed that it was included on an agenda to be discussed at all even in a backhanded way that they really didn't know what to say.
From the city council, there hasn't been much discussion about the development of a mental health crisis program in the police department, but then there hasn't been much discussion of the department unless there's crowds of people from the community and inside the department down at the meetings.
One exception has been Councilman Andrew Melendrez who has taken the initiative to move discussion of it to the public safety committee which he currently chairs. It was his idea to bring it back within 90 days after the initial meeting in January. Interestingly enough, Melendrez's son, Aurelio is an officer with the police department.
Now Hudson is talking about the Brown shooting in tandem with the need for a mental health intervention program in the police department, a development that is surprising to say the least. It appeared that the city could be admitting that the two officers if they had been provided with additional resources associated with mental health intervention could have exercised different options in responding to the situation with Brown especially in the first few seconds of encountering him.
Hudson said that mental health professionals often learn that it's not the wisest course of action to immediately approach an individual who is mentally ill if they are not engaging in violent behavior, because if a person is agitated one moment, they might be a different person by the next. Police officers often want to have the situation resolved in several minutes which may work better in some situations than others, particularly those involving mentally ill people where tactics which may work in other situations may have a detrimental effect on them.
That's an interesting observation coming from an unexpected source and one that's been raised by many mental health experts in light of mental health issues in general and tragic incidents like the Brown shooting in particular. It's also been raised by police officers in departments across the country who have dealt with the same issues. Riverside is a bit behind the curve when it comes to developing a crisis mental health intervention program in its police department.
Still, the city manager's office and perhaps some city council members pulling strings behind the scenes have been more interested in changing how the CPRC does its investigations of officer-involved deaths than in the issues arising from the most recent incidents.
The CPRC began its own investigation of the shooting immediately after it had happened. This will probably be one of the last investigations conducted by the CPRC that will be truly independent during this era in Riverside's history. And the investigation of the shooting death of Joseph Darnell Hill will probably be the last one where the CPRC will be able to dispatch its own investigator to interview witnesses without as Councilman Steve Adams said, threat of arrest from the police department and the Riverside County District Attorney's office as one or both of these agencies will likely prohibit the CPRC from conducting its own investigation the next time until these agencies have completed their own inquiries six months, a year or more than that later.
But then the handling of the Brown shooting by the police department and at City Hall by both the city manager's office and the city attorney's office is unprecedented in the history of similar incidents at least in this century if not the last one. Being on the receiving end of reports of comments made by city department heads on the rumor mill simply for paying attention is not exactly a new experience either. The city climate has indeed changed in the last six months and the Brown shooting may prove to be part of the reason why.
The city's litigation division has had a busy year as well which may be driving some concerns inside City Hall.
The year just completed saw the number of wrongful death lawsuits involving the police department increase tremendously, from a litigation rate of about 16% preceding the 2004 shooting death of Summer Lane to the 80% that exists today, a number that will increase if Hill's family members file a lawsuit. Lawsuits have so far been filed in the incustody deaths of Lane, Terry Rabb, Brown and Douglas Steven Cloud.
Before the filing of the lawsuit in the Lane case in early 2006, the last civil lawsuit filed in connection with an incustody death was one involving the shooting Anastacio Munoz in 2002.
It's pretty hard not to notice the difference that a few years makes and indeed many people have, and just as the number of incustody deaths especially shootings had increased last year, so has the city and police department's attitudes that now is a good time to change the operations of the CPRC including those which impact its ability to investigate any death of a civilian that arises from the direct or indirect action of a police officer, a power that is included in the city's charter.
The CPRC is currently drafting its final report on the Brown shooting, and when it's completed that task, it will go into closed session and deliberate on a finding.
The anniversary of the Brown shooting passed on Tuesday, and the 365 day timeline on the shooting as established by the state's
G.C. 3304(d). The police department, city manager's office and city attorney's office have spent the past few months playing around a lot with this legal provision, by defining it and redefining it and publicly chiding anyone who questions their interpretation of this particular provision of the state's peace officer bill of rights. Their tool of choice is the straw man argument involving the issue of there being no statue of limitations on the criminal investigation due to the nature of the charges that would be filed if enough evidence supported that.
The criminal investigation appears to be separate from the governmental code which appears through the choice of language used to apply only to administrative investigations conducted by law enforcement agencies. It's only the intermingling of the two types of investigations in Riverside's police department plus the practice by the department's internal affairs division of conducting administrative reviews in lieu of independent investigations under policy, #4.12 that complicates the issue in this city.
(excerpt)
(d) Except as provided in this subdivision and subdivision (g), no punitive action, nor denial of promotion on grounds other than merit, shall be undertaken for any act, omission, or other allegation of misconduct if the investigation of the allegation is not completed within one year of the public agency's discovery by a person authorized to initiate an investigation of the allegation of an act, omission, or other misconduct.
This one-year limitation period shall apply only if the act, omission, or other misconduct occurred on or after January 1, 1998. In the event that the public agency determines that discipline may be taken, it shall complete its investigation and notify the public safety officer of its proposed disciplinary action within that year, except in any of the following circumstances:
A portion of the code is highlighted because this is the exact text which has been the subject of much debate this year.
The law firm, Jones and Mayer, which represents the interests of cities and counties facing lawsuits by employees of law enforcement agencies, sent out several memos addressing recent court rulings in relation to G.C. 3304(d).
Alert 2003: 365 day statutory period
Alert 2005: 365 day statutory period
Initially, the police department and city attorney told the CPRC that the 365 statutory period didn't begin to toll until after misconduct had been uncovered during the investigation, which isn't what the text of the law states but according to one of the above memos, is a rather liberal interpretation of the code courtesy of the State Court of Appeals. However, at the March 28 meeting, City Attorney Gregory Priamos changed his argument and said that the timeline had been waived because civil litigation had been filed against the city in relation to the Brown case and didn't even mention the prior reason for ditching the timeline at all.
And it's true that ongoing civil litigation is one of the exceptions provided under G.C. 3304(d). It's also true that the litigation in question had been going on for months before it was used as a reason to waive the timeline by the city attorney's office.
(excerpt)
(6) If the investigation involves a matter in civil litigation where the public safety officer is named as a party defendant, the one-year time period shall be tolled while that civil action is pending.
However, it's extremely unlikely that the department is going to wait until after the litigation is resolved potentially years down the line to decide whether or not the involved officers will be disciplined.
What provides an interesting contrast with the Brown case is the situation that arose in 2005 when there was furor in the Lane case by the CPRC to reach a finding by the first anniversary of the shooting. However in this situation, none of these same individuals representing the city came forward to reassure them that there was no need to be concerned in that case about the timeline. Nor did representatives from either the city or the police department rush forward to reassure the commission in the case of the Rabb shooting which was decided by the CPRC nearly a month after its first anniversary when commissioners and then executive director, Pedro Payne raised similar concerns about the timeline.
Out of nine incustody deaths that have been the subject of findings by the CPRC so far, seven of these decisions were made within 365 days of the original incident. The two that weren't were the incustody deaths of Rabb in 2005 and Volne Lamont Stokes in 2003. In the Stokes case, it took the CPRC nearly two years to issue its final finding, in large part due to complications and delays that occurred
It's all moot because Hudson had told the public safety committee at a meeting in November 2006 that Chief Russ Leach didn't wait for findings from the CPRC before determining whether or not to take actions involving his officers, if something "egregious" had happened. Only, apparently the CPRC and Leach had disagreements about what that word meant in the Lane case. Hudson blamed his failure to act on that case as a result of him only being the city manager for a short while(about six months) and said if the situation involving the Lane shooting repeated itself, he would act differently without really explaining what that meant.
So with some heavy intervention by the trio of executive directors now heading the office where the CPRC is located, the CPRC is currently drafting its final report on the Brown shooting so that the city can close the door on it with a huge sigh of collective relief and move on to figuring out how to deal with the Cloud and Hill shootings which will be up on deck at the CPRC in a matter of months.
Officer-Involved Shooting Final Summary Report
Deceased: Lee Deante Brown, Black male, 31 years old
Officer: Terry Ellefson
Date/Time of Incident: April 3, 2006 at 1:58 p.m.
Location: Parking lot of the Welcome Inn of America, University and Ottawa
The final working draft of the Warnberg investigative report was crafted by Acting CPRC manager Mario Lara with assistance from his employer, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis. There were numerous changes to several sections particularly involving the trajectory analysis without any written explanation of the source of information particularly that added in close proximity to that given by experts commissioned to contribute information to the report by Investigator Butch Warnberg.
Either Lara or DeSantis, as it's often hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, said that the new information was added after discussions with Warnberg, whose firm the Baker Street Group may or may not be the investigative firm utilized by the city in the future.
This just in from the Legislative Bulletin released by the California Newspaper Publishers' Association.
League committees oppose police transparency bill
Two committees that report to the Board of Directors of the League of California Cities have voted to oppose legislation that would overturn the Supreme Court decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court and restore public access to civil service and police commission hearings and records associated with police misconduct.
In Copley Press the high court determined that records associated with the appeal of discipline imposed on a peace officer was exempt from public access. Although the court expressly declined to address the issue of civil service hearings, the ruling has resulted in the closure of civil service and police boards and commissions throughout the state.
CNPA governmental affairs staff and a representative of the ACLU appeared before the League’s Public Safety and Employee Relations Committees in support of AB 1648 by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and, although it was not on the agenda, in support of SB 1019 by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). Both bills would overturn Copley Press and establish a public right of access to confirmed instances of serious misconduct.
Both committees were quite candid in their hostility toward the bill and even more pronounced in their hostility toward newspapers. Here is a sampling of comments at the meetings: release of information would threaten the safety of peace officers and their families; release of confirmed discipline about a particular peace officer would make that officer less effective and less trustworthy in the eyes of community; newspapers are biased against law enforcement; newspapers get the facts wrong all the time and are simply not trustworthy; newspapers publish allegations but never exonerations; newspapers publish “half-truths” and always focus on the bad and never the good; the internal discipline process works fine; most police are hard working and honest.
Because both committees overwhelmingly voted to oppose, the recommendations go on the League Board’s consent calendar, even though there is a chance that some local agencies – San Francisco, Berkeley and perhaps Los Angeles – may decide to support one or both bills.
Not surprising given that the cities involved probably do not want the members of the public to know when police officers have allegations that are sustained after being investigated. Why?
Because if any of these officers are involved in major incidents including onduty shootings or ones where excessive force is alleged, then the involved parties may use this information to bolster any civil litigation they might file against any of these cities that belong to the League. It's just about civic liability, risk management and money, given how much money some of the member cities are paying out in verdicts, settlements and litigating costs on civil lawsuits annually.
In Chicago, the issue of civilian review boards has been a popular one, not surprisingly given the national coverage of several videotaped beatings by off-duty police officers against members of the public at local bars. The Daily Southtown newspaper published an article detailing a recent study that was done and the city's reaction to it.
Study: Police abuse goes unpunished
This study was conducted by a University of Chicago professor concluded that the Chicago Police Department was incapable of investigating allegations of misconduct within its ranks and that a civilian review mechanism should be created and implemented to perform that task.
(excerpt)
The study was conducted by University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman and the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based company that works on social justice projects.
“The way in which CPD investigates police abuse is a joke,” Futterman said. “If the CPD investigated civilian crime in the same way it investigates police abuse, they’d never solve a case.”
He wasn't exaggerating.
According to his study out of 10,000 complaints filed, action was only taken in about 19 of them. Officers are never interviewed about the allegations 85% of the time and that there were about 662 officers who had received 10 or more complaints between 2001-2006. About 2,450 more officers received between four and 10 complaints during that same time period.
Not surprisingly, public trust in the complaint process in Chicago is about nonexistent, one major reason why there's a push by the city's residents for a civilian review board.
In Colton, California, Police Chief Kenneth Rulon who had been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation discovered that he won't be coming back to work after City Manager Darryl Parrish terminated his contract.
Rulon had alleged that he was being investigated because he had taken allegations of misconduct involving a former city councilman to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office. In an April 5 article in the Press Enterprise, Parrish defended his actions.
(excerpt)
"There is absolutely no truth to those allegations," Parrish said in a statement, referring to the claims that Rulon was the driving force behind former Councilman Ramon Hernandez's arrest on suspicion of misusing city funds.
"Mr. Rulon did not initiate the investigation, and he was not retaliated against for submitting evidence collected by City staff to the District Attorney's office."
City officials claimed in the article that among other things, it was the Colton Police Officers Association's no confidence vote against him, which was 83-6. Soon after that vote, some of the dissenters came forword with allegations that they were being harassed by members of the association that had supported Rulon's ouster. The president of the COPA, Det. Wes Bruhn denied that there was anything going on. At the time that Rulon was placed on administrative leave, there was an ongoing investigation of allegations made against him by police officers that he had retaliated against them for complaining about his actions.
The results of Parrish's investigation into Rulon's conduct was not made public, something that frustrated at least one elected official, Councilman Richard DeLaRosa.
(excerpt)
"It's unfortunate that the mayor and the council are left in the dark," DeLaRosa said. "At this point, of course, that leaves the community in the dark regarding what the cause for this termination was."
Labels: Backlash against civilian oversight, civilian review spreads, officer-involved shootings
posted by Five Before Midnight | 5:13 PM
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