In St Louis, Missouri what started as a meeting inviting citizen feedback, devolved into a physical brawl of fists and curses between angry community members and local police. The fight back in January was perhaps not unexpected in this city just eight miles from Ferguson and just months after the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Before the St Louis Board of Alderman, a deliberation about the pros and cons of a citizen review board was simply too raw for a civil debate.
Citizen review boards have long been at the center of heated debate – opponents argue that citizen inquiries undermine community support of cops, and proponents argue that independent investigations are the only way to achieve transparency in police cases. The first review boards were established a few decades ago. And despite initial misgivings from all concerned, they have slowly been recognized as an effective tool to chip away at hardened layers of distrust and suspicion.
I was glad when Mayor Marty Walsh recently announced that he wanted to revisit the makeup and structure of Boston’s citizen review board whose official title is the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel or CO-OP. Mayor Thomas Menino established it eight years ago. But, former members of the panel admitted to the Boston Globe that CO-OP has had little impact, primarily because it did not have either the authority or the budget to investigate. As Jorge Martinez explained, “We expected much more than what was done.”
Post Ferguson, Boston’s new Mayor, Marty Walsh wants more, too. He says everything is on the table as he considers an overhaul of the citizen panel. This may be the most important step that he could take to ensure transparency and accountability from the police, and to build a strong police-community connection. Boston is not Ferguson, but it has tipped dangerously in that direction a few times.
The most effective citizen panels are not rubber stamps of police judgments, but true independent investigators arbitrators of the facts, representing the people’s interests.
Mayor Walsh’s comments come as South Carolina police officer Michael Slager was fired and charged with murder in the death 50 year old African-American Walter Scott. Officer Slager’s version of events was completely disputed by videotape, which surfaced after the shooting. An FBI investigation is under way, protestors are in the street, and the mayor has promised body cameras for all officers.
The echoes of Ferguson still resound ---with cities and towns across America hoping to take a lesson about how not to be. A strong Boston citizen police review board is a good start.
