Agenda Packet 6-19-19 Work Session

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Independent Police Auditor’s Office -- 2018 Annual Report 9 Looking Ahead Goals for 2019-2020 Our goals for the next few years are ambitious, but attainable. We are continuing to expand our community engagement opportunities and our input into refinement of practices internally and with EPD. We are working to collaborate with the new EPD Chief to address the goals related to EPD operational concerns, including training, staffing, and ensuring a respectful work environment. We will continue to focus on maintenance of our core competencies: intake and classification of complaints, monitoring and participating in investigations, making recommendations with regard to adjudication of complaints, and review of reportable uses of force. We anticipate a potential increase in complaint volume over the coming years, as increased staffing at EPD will likely lead to more complaints related to judgment and inexperience. However, a significant portion of our complaints in 2018 were related to response time, or lack of response altogether; we hope that the increased staffing will ultimately result in a decrease of that type of complaint. EPD is experiencing extensive personnel changes, starting with a new Chief of Police. We will continue to work with Chief Skinner to improve connection and collaboration between our office and IA and training staff. Between the new Chief, a new Deputy Chief, and a several large recruit classes, the next few years offer a real opportunity to foster a culture of transparency and collaboration between the police and civilian oversight. Our office has been invited by Chief Skinner to participate in recruit training, and we look forward to speaking with them about the role of civilian oversight in Eugene. We will continue to expand our outreach efforts, as noted above. Our public safety forum was a great success, and we will work to collaborate with community partners to implement similar events. We plan to focus on further outreach with neighborhoods, as well as partners in the mental health community. With a substantial increase in complaints in 2018, and 2019 appearing to continue that trend, we will continue to focus on providing excellent customer service to all reporting parties. We have experienced a significant increase in walk-in complaints over the past two years, and between the walk-ins and telephone calls, a substantial amount of staff time is devoted to complaint intake. We provide bilingual services, though our only current bilingual employee is .8 FTE. We work with EPD to create an environment where employees are comfortable with reporting possible instances of misconduct. We continue to receive a good portion of internal complaints from EPD employees, which appears to be evidence of organizational trust in our complaint system. 2019 will see many opportunities for our office to collaborate with other City organizations (such as the Human Rights and Equity Office and EPD) and community stakeholders to improve knowledge regarding our office’s role and to ensure that all avenues for complaint and commendation intakes are accessible. June 19, 2019, Work Session – Item 2