Champaign’s police review board aims to improve policing, but some fear it lacks power to make change – IPM Newsroom

In 2021, shortly after she became the chair of Champaign’s civilian police review board, Alexandra Harmon-Threatt sat down to review records and video from investigations into civilian complaints that had been filed earlier that year.

In one case, a man had accused Champaign Police Officer Nicholas Krippel of being physically and verbally aggressive toward him and making physical contact without cause during a response to a verbal disagreement between a landlord and the man who filed the complaint.

“Officer Krippel got in my face, in my space,” the complainant said in an interview with Lt. Kevin Olmstead, who conducted the Champaign Police’s internal investigation. “His vest actually touched my skin, that’s how close he was to me.” 

The man said Krippel had escalated the situation: “He only told me to stop talking and shut up, but he [said] nothing to the dude that threatened me.”

Harmon-Threatt’s review of Krippel’s bodycam video confirmed, in her mind, that both of these allegations had merit. But when she read Olmstead’s report, she found that it contradicted the video evidence.
— Read on ipmnewsroom.org/champaigns-police-review-board-aims-to-improve-policing-but-some-fear-it-lacks-power-to-make-change/