After being stood up by the Chief last night, this morning I brought my
comments and questions intended for the Chief to her office. She wasn't there,
so I ended up meeting with her administrative assistant, Mary Rainville. Here
is my version of what was said. Ms. Rainville has had access to it for only
since 1:00 p.m., so maybe she has some additions or corrections that I haven't
received yet:
Dear Ms. Rainville,
Thank you for being so generous with your time in listening to my comments and
questions for Chief Harteau that I was intending to ask at last night's
"Community Listening Session." From the best of my memory, here is what was
said in our 25-minute meeting. If you have any additions or corrections, please
let me know.
1. Credibility of oversight process regarding allegations of police misconduct.
I suggested that if we want to avoid something like what happened in Ferguson
following the shooting of Michael Brown that we need an oversight process for
dealing with allegations of misconduct that is both fair to officers and
complainants. But we also need credibility in that process, and that it was
important that that credibility be present in particular segments of the
community, those most affected and those most likely to respond as people did
in Ferguson. And I think the Chief has done some things that has reduced the
credibility in whatever oversight process we now have in Minneapolis.
Specifically:
a. High-level police presence at Police Conduct Oversight Commission
meetings. I pointed out that there was always a deputy chief in attendance at
the entire meeting of the CRA board, but other than one officer who gave a
presentation and then stayed for the whole meeting, no high-level member of the
MPD has ever attended an entire PCOC meeting. I said that one of Council Member
Samuels's rationales for proposing the overhaul of the CRA was to have more
dialogue between the civilian oversight body and the MPD, but in this respect,
the new process was turning out to be less interaction. You suggested something
about not wanting to appear like the MPD was interfering in the PCOC, and I
responded that in CRA meetings, the deputy chief participated only when called
on regarding practices within the MPD, availability of certain MPD materials,
etc., which was a frequent occurrence at CRA meetings. He did not otherwise
participate in their discussions. What went on in the closed sessions, where
the Chief's responses to individual sustained cases were being discussed, is a
different matter, of which I know nothing. I also pointed out that I have made
this comment to the PCOC as well.
b. Chief's Citizens' Advisory Council. I said I thought the meetings should
be open to the public. I said it was probably formed earlier -- and you pointed
out it was established by Chief Dolan -- but when it received publicity at the
time of the high-profile MPD incidents in the summer of 2013, having it
continue to meet in secret was a bad policy. I said I had read that the Chief
said this was because the council members themselves had said they wanted the
meetings to be closed, so that they could be more open and honest. I said that
secret meetings in the name of openness and honesty sounded strange to me. I
also said that I had written the Chief, asking for five minutes to address the
council -- of which she is a co-chair -- about the wisdom of having closed
meetings, and though I've heard back from the Chief on other issues (e.g., my
suggestion that she meet with Mike Quinn, which she said she was going to do),
I didn't get a response to this request.
I also suggested that the PCOC was the official body representing the
community on issues of police policy, and that if the Chief wanted to continue
meeting in secret with the Citizens' Advisory Council, she ought to invite the
PCOC to have representation on the council. This is especially true given that
one of the four council committees deals with accountability. You responded
that the PCOC should ask for this, and I replied that certainly not all of the
groups represented on the Chief's council are on it because they requested
representation. Surely the Chief made such outreach efforts on her own too. I
suggested the Chief could even ask the other council members if it would be
okay for the PCOC to be represented, and then invite the PCOC. I also said I
had suggested to the PCOC that they request such representation, but now I was
going at it from the other end.
c. Meeting with Communities United Against Police Brutality. I said I had
seen on the MPD Facebook page that the Chief is constantly out in the
community, meeting with all sorts of groups and attending all sorts of events.
But if the Chief wants to have credibility on the issue of police
accountability with the segments of the community where that credibility maybe
is most crucial, I suggested that for the last 15 years, the most credible
community group on this issue was CUAPB. I said I am not a member of that
group, and maybe they would turn down such an invitation, but if the Chief
wants credibility on the issue of police accountability, she ought to request a
meeting with that group to discuss their concerns and ideas.
3. Common courtesy in police interactions. I said that I didn't believe police
brutality was rampant in the community -- though, of course, I'm white and
older -- but from the 120 case synopses and 33 more extended case summaries
that the PCOC has received from the Office of Police Conduct Review, it seemed
that a former temporary investigator of the CRA had it exactly right. His name
was Dan Miller, he had previously worked for police departments in Burnsville,
Madison, Wisconsin, and Effingham, Illinois, as well as the FBI, and I had a
20-minute conversation with him when I ran into him as he was leaving City Hall
with a box of his materials when his temporary employment with the CRA had
ended. [The date of this conversation was January 6, 2012.] I read you my notes
from that conversation, which boiled down to Mr. Miller saying that many of the
cases that he saw at the CRA dealt with a lack of common courtesy, that "he was
especially vehement that officers ought to be able to withstand language and
insults thrown their way," that the upper levels of the MPD knew this was going
on, and that the MPD had a reputation among other police departments and "is
known to tolerate abusive behavior." You pointed out that people who interact
with police, frequently in tense situations, commonly make such allegations,
and that the MPD has millions of citizen contacts and relatively few complaints
given the huge number of interactions.
I said -- probably earlier in this exchange -- that I had read police work is
not as life threatening as some people believe, that it wasn't in the top ten
occupations for dying from work, but that police officers are constantly going
into very stressful situations, and that police work does cause heightened
stress among officers. I said I did believe there were probably some overly
aggressive officers -- what others might call "thumpers" -- and that they might
well serve a function in police enforcement, much like "enforcers" in hockey,
and that maybe the police department didn't really want to get rid of them. You
said that in any large group, there would no doubt be some officers like this,
and I suggested that in an agency that has the legal authority to use lethal
force, this has to be a particular concern.
4. Recruitment of former military as police officers. I said I had seen a June
3, 2014, WCCO-TV report about the MPD actively and vigorously recruiting former
military -- especially those who had served in the front lines -- to become
police officers, and that 9 out of 19 of a group of recent recruits were former
military. I said I hadn't heard anyone express concerns about this, and I
suggested that the ability to take orders and to shoot was hardly enough for
police work. In fact, I suggested, maybe there are some things about military
personnel that make them unfit for police work. In particular, I mentioned that
those in the military, in that they fight wars, of necessity had to adopt an
"us vs. them" mentality, the opposite of what might be needed in police work.
The military might be much more likely than we'd want to see among police
officers to shoot first and ask questions later. I also pointed out that there
have been studies showing that domestic violence is greater among returning
vets, and also greater among police officers than in the general population, so
maybe this policy exacerbates a problem with these two groups of people. So I
said maybe this aggressive recruitment policy should be thought through more
carefully.
5. Chief's absence at last night's meeting. I said I had seen an email of what
the Coalition for Critical Change was suggesting -- wear red, bring signs, and
ask questions -- and I had read the MPR article about what they had found on
Facebook pages regarding people's intentions, and it didn't sound all that
threatening to me. I also pointed out that a former MPD sergeant, Lisa Clemons
(sp?) said last night that the Chief had 700 uniformed officers she could call
on for protection. You responded that it was done for "public safety" reasons,
that you didn't know how many City Council members were there last night but
that the threatened actions were directed at the police department, so if the
Chief showed up with force, she would be criticized for that too. I replied
that if I were in law enforcement and people had directed threats toward the
Chief, that if the Chief was absent, maybe that anger would be re-directed
toward other public officials who were in attendance, viz., the three City
Council members and the PCOC member, but no visible police presence was evident
at all. When I asked if City Attorney Susan Segal, who though scheduled also
did not attend, had likewise been threatened, you said you didn't know.
At one point in the discussion regarding the Chief's decision not to attend the
listening session, you also seemed to indicate -- and with great emotion --
that the incident at Cub Foods weighed into the Chief's concerns. You expressed
considerable irritation that a group would target a private business about what
you said were legitimately issued trespass notices. I said I didn't know
anything about this situation. It did seem to me, though, that it was the
Neighborhoods Organizing for Change group that caused the greatest concerns for
the Chief.
[6. Internal Affairs Unit statistics. One concern I did not raise was that in
2008, the Police Executive Research Forum had done an outside audit of the
MPD's Internal Affairs Unit. And in their report, they had complimented the IAU
for being in compliance with some police department accrediting organization's
standards by issuing annual reports. But if you look at the MPD's website,
since 2008, no annual reports appear. In 2009 and 2010, there are summary
statistics -- which I found to be the most valuable parts of the more extensive
previous annual reports anyhow -- but since 2010, nothing. I have written
Commander Granger twice about this, but have gotten no response. I do realize
that complaints filed by citizens now all go to the OPCR, but data on
internally filed complaints, which the IAU did previously release, have not
been available since 2010.]
Again, thank you for meeting with me, and if you have additions or corrections,
please let me know. I'm getting old, and my memory ain't what it used to be.
Also, please know that my comments were coming only from me, not representative
of other people's concerns.
Yours,
Chuck Turchick
Phillips