Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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this, he had tried to take all of the standards and apply them to the incident. He had provided his analysis to the Police Chief. Mr. Gissiner stated that there was a policy regarding language competency and he had reviewed it. He had found it difficult to tie that policy to a warrantless entry to a home. He had shared some policies from other cities with the Police Chief that addressed that issue well. He remarked that everyone appreciated the sanctity of their homes and did not want those rights infringed upon. He said they needed to ensure that EPD officers had a clear understanding of what their responsibilities were in these types of circumstances. He felt the Chief had an appreciation of this. He stated that interactions with divergent populations were very important to the Chief and the department would work to handle that better and to reduce the possibility of a similar incident occurring in the future. He observed that police officers had 200,000 to 300,000 contacts in a year and said it would be unrealistic to think that all of the contacts would go smoothly. Nonetheless, they could try to reduce the problems by improving training, policy, procedures, and thought processes with regard to these kinds of issues. He noted that he had posted the recommendations for changes to the policies and procedures on the Police Auditor web site. Ms. Ortiz thanked Mr. Gissiner for the report. She asked if there was any advocacy from the volunteer community on behalf of complainants. Mr. Gissiner replied that it was not the responsibility of the auditor’s office to advocate, it was their responsibility to monitor and evaluate the investigative process and to make recommendations on training, policies, and procedures. Ms. Ortiz said historically the Human Rights Commission (HRC) had a component of advocacy that helped people process such incidents. She agreed that the Police Auditor should not serve in the role of an advocate, but she felt the City needed to offer some kind of advocacy to help people through this type of process. She recalled the program that the City used to have and noted that being an advocate only meant that they provided help to the people and not that an advocate would have an opinion one way or another. Mr. Gissiner stated that the auditor’s office served as an advocate for a fair process and for insuring that investigations were thorough and unbiased and that there were subsequent improvements to policies, procedures, and community relations. Mr. Clark noted that he and Mr. Brown served as the council liaisons to the Police Commission. He asked if all of the systems were in place for them to bring pieces related to warrantless entry and language th competency to the commission to develop policy. Mr. Gissiner responded that the 9 Circuit Court had issued a rapid policy directive regarding the use of Tasers. He was hopeful that warrantless entry to homes would be done “expeditiously.” He considered that to be very important and wanted the policies to be crystal clear to the officers and in the training manuals. Mr. Brown had been disturbed that the incident had not been reported more widely and that the HRC had not been contacted. He was glad that the problems were being identified and steps were being taken to remediate them. He agreed that the department needed a clear policy on warrantless entry. Mr. Gissiner related that a different judge had ruled on a Taser case in Hawaii. He said the ruling was very different from the previous ruling. He called it unfortunate because it sent different messages to the officers. Mr. Zelenka commended the auditor’s handing of this case. He asked how the case would play out at this point. Mr. Gissiner replied that the Civilian Review Board (CRB) was authorized to review and discuss the chief’s adjudication and whether or not they agreed with it. MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 8, 2010 Page 8 Work Session