I'd have no problem if the City Council's Public Safety Committee disagreed
with me on the CRA restructuring proposal. There is always room for rational
disagreement. Why, sometimes I even disagree with myself.
Even if committee members put forward irrational arguments, I could understand.
This is a highly emotional issue, and none of us argue rationally about it all
of the time.
But neither rational nor irrational disagreement is what has happened so far.
Rather, the committee has been arational or non-rational in dealing with this
issue. That can be scary.
I say this because in deciding whether to vote for a proposal to merge the
Civilian Review Authority with the Minneapolis Police Department's Internal
Affairs Unit, there are certain obvious questions that should be asked -- none
of which has been asked so far:
1. When the CRA restructuring proposal's main sponsor, Civil Rights Director
Velma Korbel, tells the committee that the only way to change the police
culture is to involve officers in the investigation of complaints alleging
officer misconduct, wouldn't it be reasonable to ask what her evidence is for
that assertion? Are there any recognized experts on changing police culture
that agree or disagree with her? What do they say?
2. Shouldn't someone ask if hearing panels comprised both of officers and
civilians -- let alone panels comprised of two of each -- have been tried
anywhere else? And if so, with what results?
3. According to Ms. Korbel, the proposal was developed primarily by Lt. Travis
Glampe, the head of Internal Affairs, and former Assistant Civil Rights
Director Lee Reid. She called them her two "subject matter experts" on civilian
oversight. But there is strong evidence that one of these two architects of the
proposal, Lee Reid, does not in fact even support it -- in particular, that he
does not support its two most radical provisions of involving officers both in
the investigations and on the hearing panels in CRA cases. Shouldn't someone
ask Mr. Reid what he thinks of the proposal he supposedly authored?
4. There being two CRA investigators and six IAU investigators, the merger
would mean that 75% of the cases filed with the CRA would now be investigated
by police officers. Might it be relevant how citizen complaints previously
filed with the IAU were investigated and treated? Communities United Against
Police Brutality reports that pursuant to a Data Practices request, it
determined that of 994 citizen complaints filed with the IAU between 1996 and
2006, two were sustained. No one has disputed these figures. Shouldn't someone
ask the MPD whether these are accurate, and if not, what are the statistics?
5. One problem the proposal claims to address is that of delays in CRA cases.
What is causing the delays? Are CRA cases and IAU cases similarly investigated?
Are there differences in the investigators' caseloads? If so, wouldn't it make
a whole lot more sense to transfer an investigator instead of turning a whole
agency upside down and inside out?
6. Should it be relevant that at the three community meetings to take feedback
from the public, every single person spoke against this proposal, and at the
City Council hearing, one person out of about 15 speakers favored the proposal?
Is this the kind of issue that the sense of the community should be overridden?
I may be mistaken. Maybe these are all irrelevant questions. But even if that
is the case, I would appreciate it greatly if a City Council member who might
see this list would explain to me why any one of these questions is not
relevant to the decision the Council will be making this Friday.
I apologize if this posting violates any rules of civility.
Chuck Turchick
Phillips
with me on the CRA restructuring proposal. There is always room for rational
disagreement. Why, sometimes I even disagree with myself.
Even if committee members put forward irrational arguments, I could understand.
This is a highly emotional issue, and none of us argue rationally about it all
of the time.
But neither rational nor irrational disagreement is what has happened so far.
Rather, the committee has been arational or non-rational in dealing with this
issue. That can be scary.
I say this because in deciding whether to vote for a proposal to merge the
Civilian Review Authority with the Minneapolis Police Department's Internal
Affairs Unit, there are certain obvious questions that should be asked -- none
of which has been asked so far:
1. When the CRA restructuring proposal's main sponsor, Civil Rights Director
Velma Korbel, tells the committee that the only way to change the police
culture is to involve officers in the investigation of complaints alleging
officer misconduct, wouldn't it be reasonable to ask what her evidence is for
that assertion? Are there any recognized experts on changing police culture
that agree or disagree with her? What do they say?
2. Shouldn't someone ask if hearing panels comprised both of officers and
civilians -- let alone panels comprised of two of each -- have been tried
anywhere else? And if so, with what results?
3. According to Ms. Korbel, the proposal was developed primarily by Lt. Travis
Glampe, the head of Internal Affairs, and former Assistant Civil Rights
Director Lee Reid. She called them her two "subject matter experts" on civilian
oversight. But there is strong evidence that one of these two architects of the
proposal, Lee Reid, does not in fact even support it -- in particular, that he
does not support its two most radical provisions of involving officers both in
the investigations and on the hearing panels in CRA cases. Shouldn't someone
ask Mr. Reid what he thinks of the proposal he supposedly authored?
4. There being two CRA investigators and six IAU investigators, the merger
would mean that 75% of the cases filed with the CRA would now be investigated
by police officers. Might it be relevant how citizen complaints previously
filed with the IAU were investigated and treated? Communities United Against
Police Brutality reports that pursuant to a Data Practices request, it
determined that of 994 citizen complaints filed with the IAU between 1996 and
2006, two were sustained. No one has disputed these figures. Shouldn't someone
ask the MPD whether these are accurate, and if not, what are the statistics?
5. One problem the proposal claims to address is that of delays in CRA cases.
What is causing the delays? Are CRA cases and IAU cases similarly investigated?
Are there differences in the investigators' caseloads? If so, wouldn't it make
a whole lot more sense to transfer an investigator instead of turning a whole
agency upside down and inside out?
6. Should it be relevant that at the three community meetings to take feedback
from the public, every single person spoke against this proposal, and at the
City Council hearing, one person out of about 15 speakers favored the proposal?
Is this the kind of issue that the sense of the community should be overridden?
I may be mistaken. Maybe these are all irrelevant questions. But even if that
is the case, I would appreciate it greatly if a City Council member who might
see this list would explain to me why any one of these questions is not
relevant to the decision the Council will be making this Friday.
I apologize if this posting violates any rules of civility.
Chuck Turchick
Phillips
