Item B: Meeting w/Police Comm. - Laserfiche WebLink

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Police Complaint System and Civilian Oversight Recommendations 14th meeting, the intake model was revised again, this time directing all civilian complaints to the auditor's office for intake, classification, and follow up. The Intake Committee also developed recommendations on several issues related to complaint intake and handling decisions, such as whether anonymous complaints should be accepted and the role of mediation and other alternative resolution options in the process. These recommendations, along with the latest iteration of the intake model description, are described in more detail later in this report. Adjudication/Review Committee The goals of the Adjudication/Review Committee were to: 1) review existing practices around case adjudication, discipline decisions, and review/appeal of the adjudication, 2) explore other processes/models and how civilian oversight fits into those models, and 3) make recommendations for changes that would promote accountability, thoroughness, timeliness, integrity, fairness, transparency and consistency. The committee began its task by reviewing the 1998 External Review Advisory Committee (ERAC) report and analyzing broad categories of civilian complaint review to identify strengths and weaknesses of each type of system. Three models were reviewed: Auditor/Ombudsman Only; Civilian Review Board; and Hybrid Models that included both an auditor and review board. The committee agreed early on that it preferred a hybrid system as advocated by the ERAC, but that its proposal should be more specific about the auditor and civilian review board's authority, responsibilities arid reporting relationships to city leadership and other policy bodies. The committee cited the following benefits of a hybrid system: o it incorporates the advantages of auditor and civilian review board-only models by combining increased citizen involvement and professional expertise; o it addresses requests of community and police employees for a fair, transparent and credible system; o it provides for more "checks and balances" within the complaint process and of police practices in general; o by not just focusing on individual complaints, the auditor is able monitor investigations with an eye towards systemic improvements, adding analytical capacity to the organization; o there is the ability to avoid some of the legal/labor contract issues because the auditor, as a city employee, could assume some duties that would otherwise be bargainable if vested in a citizen board. Committee members also acknowledged that a hybrid system could pose some challenges in comparison to the other models: o it may be more complex to implement and there is less chance for a seamless operation; o there is the possibility of an adversarial relationship between the various oversight components, policy bodies and city leadership; o more components add bureaucratic layers and expense to the process; o complaint resolution is apt to be less timely than in other models.