I wrote the following letter to Mr. Roth after that conversation.
Later, when the Board of Alderman in St. Louis City were considering their bill on the creation of the CRB, I sent a copy of this letter to Alderman Kennedy, who was introducing the legislation, as well as to City of St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dodson, and Ray Hartmann, former editor of the Riverfront Times, who was very supportive of the CRB concept.
Then, when the Ferguson Commission was having hearings for the report they were drafting, I attended one on policing issues at UMSL; following that hearing, I gave a copy of the letter to a graduate student who was working with the Ferguson Commission, asking him to forward it to Rev. Starsky Wilson, who was Chair of the Commission.
Further, when I was in Albuquerque in October 2014, there was an introductory hearing on police actions in the city (on the heels of 28 police killings of citizens over a 5 year period). At the conclusion of the hearing, the mayor invited participants to approach him if they had concerns. I talked to him for a while about my experiences in the early 1980s with the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board [APAB], and offered to send him a copy my analysis that was contained in this letter. As I was leaving the hearing, I walked up to one of the reporters from KOB-TV news and noted that I was the former Chair of the APAB -- immediately, the reporter told her cameraman to turn on the camera and recorded an interview, which was broadcast on the 10 p.m. news that evening.
Unfortunately, none of the people to whom I sent a copy of my analysis had the good graces to even send an acknowledgement, which I found rather disrespectful. I felt that as the former Chair of a civilian review board I deserved at least an acknowledgement of my experience, which was good background for the construction of such a Board in St. Louis, Missouri, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and further deserved such as a private citizen who was concerned about the process that many people say is so important.
Hence, since I have long ago constructed this forum for my Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, I will reprint my letter, in the hopes that someone will take notice of my suggestions, and those observations will potentially impact the formation of a civilian review board in my two cities of past and present residence.
The Letter
Eddie Roth
Director of
Operations
Office of the
Mayor
City Hall, Room
200
St. Louis, MO
63103
I briefly spoke
with you on Wednesday, September 11, at the Local Control Transition Team
meeting at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. I mentioned that I
had, in the early 1980’s, been the Chairman of the Albuquerque Police Advisory
Board, and thought that the experience I had there -- and the lessons learned
from that tenure -- may be of some value to the Transition Team in constructing
a Citizen Review Board here in St. Louis.
I would have taken
the opportunity to speak before the Transition Team had I arrived sooner and
had a chance to sufficiently ‘compose’ my ideas. As it was, I was rushing there
from a forum at the Missouri History Museum on Housing Discrimination, and
hence arrived late. And the Transition Team meeting ended much more abruptly
than I had assumed it would. Alternately, though, it may have been ‘just as
well’, since I believe I have much more to convey than I could have relayed
with any realistic sufficiency at the meeting.
To wit: I served
on the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board [APAB] from January 1980 - August
1981, and was Chair of the APAD from August 1980 - August 1981. During that
tenure on the Board, I had the opportunity to view some the processes of the
Albuquerque Police Department first-hand, and to learn some important lessons
(positive and negative) about what works or doesn’t work in such a citizen
advisory setting. What follows are some those lessons and my suggestions
concerning the manifestation of the Citizen Review Board here in St. Louis.
1. It is critical that the Citizen Review Board be neutral
A critical lesson
we learned early on was that if the Board was not neutral, it would have very
little credibility in the eyes of the citizens. The Albuquerque Police Advisory
Board was originally brought into existence in response to citizen concerns
about police brutality. At first, the Albuquerque Police Department [APD]
simply packed the Board with former members of the State Police and City Police
force and their spouses -- and, hence, for it’s first two years of existence,
it was largely a ‘rubber stamp’ board. As such, it was, not surprisingly,
viewed as a reluctant -- and largely ineffective -- agreement by the Police
Department to address citizen concerns. When I was appointed to the Board in
1980, it became immediately clear that the Board needed to be restructured.
Almost immediately I was elected as one of two Vice Chairs (largely because I
had management and organizing skills -- and was willing to serve in a
leadership role). It was clear that the Board needed to become neutral and not
be simply a rubber stamp for either the APD or the Mayor’s office. It was only
as a neutral body that it could adequately address concerns in an ‘ombudsman’
role between the citizens and the Department.
> As such, it
would be my suggestion that the Citizen Review Board [CRB] not be a creature of
the Mayor’s Office, nor the Police Department [PD], but that it be allowed and
encouraged to remain independent of both -- and that the members chosen for the
CRB be individuals who are well-known in the community to be fair, balanced,
and ethical in their decision-making. Only in this manner can the CRB truly
have the independence to review departmental policies and give the kind of
‘considered’ opinions that the PD needs to rationally address citizen concerns,
as well as to make strategic internal policy changes that will allow it to more
effectively and fairly implement the law.
2. Meeting location is important
It quickly became
obvious to the new members of the Board that meeting solely in the Police
Department Board Room was administratively claustrophobic and never gave the
citizens a chance to know whether or not the Board was serving their needs in
an adequate manner. Hence, one of the first changes I made, upon becoming the
Chair, was to start having two meetings a month, one at the Police Department
and one in the community. I initially chose high crime areas in which to have
the community meetings, precisely because I knew that in those neighborhoods
citizen concerns about police behavior would be the most mixed (and therefore
the APD could learn the best lessons on more effective and ‘better received’
policing tactics). By ‘moving outside the department’, we had a chance to
demonstrate to the citizens that we were taking their concerns seriously. Then,
at the other monthly meeting at the APD, we could review what had transpired at
the community meeting and engage in an active discussion among the members on
policies we would suggest the department implement.
> Hence, I
would suggest that the Citizen Review Board [CRB] make a point of taking their
Board into the community. Citizen participation and interest will be far
greater if the Board goes to where the citizens are, rather than expecting
the citizens to come to them.
3. Have Police Department personnel at the meetings, to answer citizen concerns
When we had our
first community hearing, one of the Captains attended. However, he failed to
address the citizen concerns in a very effective manner, instead shifting the
blame for any problems onto “the lawyers or the judges”. That was simply
unacceptable to the Board and hence, after relaying these concerns to the Police
Chief, he offered to attend the community hearings himself. As best as we know,
he adequately addressed the citizen concerns, taking down their name and phone
numbers and agreeing to ‘get back to them with an answer’ to those concerns.
>
Therefore, having a PD representative at the CRB community meetings who can and
is willing to address the citizen concerns in an effective manner (and let the
Board know what the outcome of his response is) would be quite important.
4. The Board should be large enough to allow for diversity and quorums
The APAB was
composed of 11 members: nine of the members represented each of the 9 city
council districts, and two members were appointed, by the Mayor’s Office, as
at-large representatives (I was an at-large member). Having eleven members was
actually a very good number, in that it was flexible enough to allow for an
active discussion of the issues, and, when not all of the members were present,
it helped to assure that the Board could achieve a quorum, so that business could
continue unimpeded. Plus, with an uneven number of members, tie votes were less
likely to occur.
As for diversity,
it simply turned out to be a good mix, both by intent and luck. When we moved
to a two-meeting-a-month system, about 6 members of the previous ‘rubber stamp’
board resigned; they were willing to serve when it only required an assent
vote, not when it required actual work on behalf of the members. These
resignations allowed our Mayor, David Rusk (son of the former U.S. Secretary of
State) to appoint a much more balanced board of community-minded members. By
the time all the members were appointed, we had a Board that had 5 women and 6
men, and was ethnically and racially representative of the city as well (in
Albuquerque, Hispanics and Anglos are the majority population, with around
5-10% African American and other minorities). I personally represented that
inherent diversity, in that, while I was by appearance an Anglo member, I come
from a large, respected, and politically well-established New Mexican Hispanic
clan.
By being more
balanced in a gender and ethnic sense, we were viewed by the citizens as being
more representative of their concerns: they ‘saw themselves’ represented by
that diversity, and had a stronger sense that they would have their concerns
adequately addressed.
> Hence, I
would suggest that the St. Louis CRB have 11 members as well (as noted, it
simply worked out well for the process). In having 11 members, the Board could
have a reasonable gender and ethnic/racial mix. I would suggest having a
Bosnian, Vietnamese, and Hispanic member, and then balancing the remaining 8
positions equally divided between native-born European-American and
African-American members. Further, it would be important that the Board be
gender-balanced, with 5 or 6 female members and 5 or 6 male members (however
the numbers work out). Additionally, the LGBT community needs to be represented
as well; hence, I would suggest that one of the males be an openly-identified
gay man and one of the female members be an openly-identified lesbian woman.
That way, the citizens in the city will feel that their concerns are more
likely to be addressed -- and that the Board will be sensitive to their issues
-- since it would be a Board that ‘looked like them’.
Members could be
suggested by the Mayor’s Office, by the Police Department, by the Board of
Aldermen, and by various community organizations. Encouraging a city-wide
search for effective, thoughtful, and active members would help to ensure that
the citizens of the city would feel that they were ‘shareholders‘ in the
process.
Further,
I believe that mandating that those positions remain with that definitive
balance, when reappointing members (when someone resigns or is replaced), is
quite important. In such a citizen review process, even setting up a ‘quota’
system for membership would not be inadvisable. Failing to do so would
potentially allow the Board, over time, to ‘drift’ into a majority white male
board, which often seems to happen in St. Louis.
5. Maintain a high degree of transparency in the proceedings of the Board
For the APAB to be
effective -- and to be seen as effective by the citizens who demanded its
initial creation -- I made a point of reaching out to the ‘police beat’
reporter and the television stations, to invite them to actively attend the
meetings and to report on our progress, which they did. I should note, though,
that the APAB was only an ‘advisory’ board; we were not mandated to oversee the
department, nor to review their policies. The extent to which we were effective
resulted from lobbying efforts by the members and the fact that each
represented a city council district, and therefore a City Councilman.
> Hence, I
would suggest, if the process in St. Louis is only advisory, and not proscriptive,
that the media be actively encouraged to attend the meetings of the Review
Board and issue reports to the public on a regular and timely basis. The last
thing that would be advisable is for the Board to be secretive in their
proceedings or for their suggestions to remain confidential; it is quite
important that they exercise ‘transparency’, so that the citizens have a good
sense that their concerns are being addressed in a professional and effective
manner.
-------------------------------
Of course, none of
these suggestions ‘guarantees’ that the Citizen Review Board will be effective.
We certainly had mixed results in Albuquerque; in some ways, the PD listened to
us and changed their policies, and we had a high recognition among the
citizenry; in other ways we were ignored by the PD and the public. Nonetheless,
implementing these suggestions would be a good step in that direction (as we
all know, there are no guarantees in this life, especially when it comes to
human interaction). The personalities of the members, their ability to remain
neutral and professional in their review process, and the willingness of the
Mayor’s Office and Police Department to allow the Board to operate
independently without political or administrative oversight, would affect the
validity of the Board.
I hope the
experiences I had as Chair of the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board, over 30
years ago, and the suggestions I have made, are of value in constructing and
promulgating the St. Louis Citizen Review Board process. If you would like me
to expound further on my ideas, please let me know. As a nonprofit founder,
community organizer, anti-racism trainer [with the World of Difference
Program], and a citizen of St. Louis, I am actively concerned about how this
process moves forward, and want to make sure that all the citizens in our fair
city can believe that the policing policies are balanced and sensitive to the
diversity of our population in St. Louis.
Respectfully,
Donald B.
Jeffries, MPA, MSW
Executive
Director, Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute
Email:
wellness@mmwi-stl.org
