Tag: Police Accountability

KUOW – Seattle Community Police Commission seeks to regroup from internal turmoil, influence crowd control ordinance

Seattle’s Community Police Commission was created to amplify the voices of communities affected by policing and weigh in on police reform. But internal conflicts, vacancies, and turnover have frustrated that mission in recent years, according to an outside review.

Now members say they’re trying to move forward in time to influence the city’s latest ordinance governing crowd management and less-lethal weapons.

Seattle’s Community Police Commission was created as part of the city’s 2012 consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, after federal officials found a pattern of unconstitutional excessive force by police.
— Read on www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-community-police-commission-seeks-to-regroup-from-internal-turmoil

Police Oversight Report 2023 – City of Boulder

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For the past five years, the City of Boulder embraced civilian oversight of the Boulder Police Department to ensure that the Boulder community participated in oversight of the Boulder Police Department (BPD). Similar to other municipalities and counties, oversight of BPD brought challenges to the community. One year ago, the City Council updated Boulder’s police oversight system when it passed Ordinance 8609.

Boulder City Council authorized the assembly of the Police Oversight Task Force in Spring of 2019 to investigate appropriate oversight of policing in Boulder. In response to recommendations made by the Task Force, Ordinance 8361 was passed in October of 2019, which created the Police Oversight Panel (Panel) and the predecessor to the Independent Police Monitor (Monitor).

Since its inception, the Panel was intended to overrepresent populations that historically experienced underrepresentation while also being more at risk for over-policing. Police oversight in Boulder experienced a tumultuous year in 2023 and continued growth in 2024. In late 2022, the inaugural Monitor resigned and the OIR Group was hired to act as interim Monitor while a replacement Monitor was recruited. At the same time, in early 2023 the City of Boulder also retained consultant Farah Muscadin to work with members of the Panel, community, BPD and legal staff to update the oversight ordinance. The City Council granted the Panel a moratorium to pause core functions to focus on the ordinance update. In August 2023, Sherry Daun began work as the Monitor and in October 2023, Ordinance 8609 passed City Council unanimously.

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25246266/item_2_-_police_oversight_update.pdf

2 Chicago police oversight officials fired amid allegations of anti-cop bias at the agency – Chicago Sun-Times

Commentary: Is it good for the process of police accountability if the oversight entity is biased against police? An administrator for the COPA said that their commitment is to the people of the city of Chicago. What exactly does that mean? Does that mean to find police guilty of misconduct? Does that mean to provide a fair process? Is there damage done to the city of Chicago, its police department, and the citizenry if police officers are wrongly found guilty of police misconduct? Isn’t there a cost to the City of Chicago when police officers are lost especially for biased reasons? 

The two high-ranking officials with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability were abruptly fired Friday, just days after one of them complained to the inspector general about bias against police.
— Read on chicago.suntimes.com/police-reform/2024/08/30/officials-police-oversight-agency-copa-dismissed-retaliation-bias-against-police

Repeated Police Misconduct by 200 Officers Cost Chicago Taxpayers $164.3M Over 5 Years: Analysis | Chicago News | WTTW

Cases that involved at least one officer with repeated claims of misconduct accounted for nearly 43% of the $384.2 million paid by taxpayers to resolve police misconduct cases between 2019 and 2023, according to the analysis.

The issue with this report is that there is no like to the analysis.

The report doesn’t indicate how many cases went to trial, lost at trial, cases where compromises were made.

Keep in mind that with police misconduct law suits the Municipality acts in its own interests. Not in the interests of the officers. This means the officers can be innocent of the accusations and the Municipality would settle if it thinks it less expensive or politically advantageous to settle.
— Read on news.wttw.com/2024/08/12/repeated-police-misconduct-200-officers-cost-chicago-taxpayers-1643m-over-5-years

The Misuse of Police Authority in Chicago – A Report

The Misuse of Police Authority in Chicago, a Report and Recommendations based on hearings before the Blue Ribbon Panel convened by the Honorable Ralph H. Metcalfe – Police Accountability Task Force, Chicago, Illinois
— Read on chicagopatf.org/2016/01/04/the-misuse-of-police-authority-in-chicago-a-report-and-recommendations-based-on-hearings-before-the-blue-ribbon-panel-convened-by-the-honorable-ralph-h-metcalfe/

Effective management of serious police misconduct: A machine learning analysis

Abstract: There are a range of management strategies available to police agencies to prevent serious misconduct. While many of these strategies are well accepted practice, there is limited empirical evidence demonstrating their effectiveness.
This study uses partial dependence plots to explore management strategies which have been identified as either increasing or decreasing risk of serious police misconduct. These include the provision of awards or complimentary remarks to officers, remedial action resulting from sustained complaints, and transfers between workplaces.

apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-08/apo-nid313528.pdf