Proposed changes to the Dallas Community Police Oversight Board. Update.
This is to ensure a harmonious future for our city.
Sign the petition at this link. https://chng.it/zDtNQr5T
Update 2:
Even the Dallas Morning News has realized how worthless the board is.
UPDATE: This violent individual had been investigated 22 times in incidents over 10 years and it didn’t stop until an innocent person was killed. This should tell you how worthless the Community Oversite Police Review Board is.
Why this is important.
In some cases the impact of violence is more than just the individual or individuals victimized, the body politic, the social life of a community, is also victimized.
An example is a terrorist killing of an individual or individuals, the purpose it to terrorize a larger community to intimidate them to not do something or to do something. The violence directed at the individual is also directed at a community.
When there is violence against an individual due to the abuse of a police officer it is also violence against our rights as citizens in a free society. If the abuse is tolerated, our rights as citizens are diminished.
When there is violence against an individual related to their membership in a group, such as a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic group or other class of individuals and it is tolerated, it defines that group as not being citizens and being an underclass. For citizens have rights to security in their person and property.
The concern over police abuse isn’t just the issue of the abuse of the individuals to be merely counted as crimes and abuses like other crimes, for they are attacks on the body politic, our society, and our unity.
Introduction to the proposed changes.
To better understand these proposed changes, it would be useful to first read a critique of the current Dallas municipal code to understand how the present Community Police Oversight Board is designed to be ineffective.
The Dallas Community Police Oversight Board (CPOB) municipal code has many small cuts which render it not very effective. The following are proposed changes to the municipal code which could make it much more effective.
Proposed Changes
[1] End the delays and authorize taking action:
The CPOB can initiate and start investigations on their own, when receiving a written complaint, or when a complaint is submitted to the police department.
Initiation
Currently the CPOB can’t start an investigation on its own. It remains static unless the victim has time to fill out paper work and submit a complaint. Even then the complaint goes to the Dallas Police Department (DPD) for action and the CPOB takes no further action until the Dallas police department internal affairs reports back.
It is not clear whether the person filing the complaint might have to then go the police department which traumatized the victim to discuss their complaint so the police department would initiate an investigation.
It could well be that the victim or victims are so traumatized that they don’t want to go to any official body of Dallas if they think they might have to deal with the Dallas police department which traumatized them in the first place.
Also, the victim might not be capable of filing a report because he or she is severely traumatized or dead or has left the Dallas area.
For example, in the notorious episode of police abuse on the Margaret Hill Bridge on June 1, 2020, the CPOB should have been able to launch an investigation on its own without there being a complaint. There was no reason for them to need a written complaint to initiate action.
The board should be empowered to be effective and do what is necessary to improve police performance by eliminating abuse.
Delays
The timeliness of the CPOB is blocked by a great range of restrictions. In some cases, they might not start for over a year or more. The municipal code is written such that in the worst cases of police abuse the response of the CPOB is most delayed and possibly or year or years.
By the time the case reaches the CPOB memories have faded, likely the victims have given up hope or been frustrated by delays, and the public has forgotten the case. Forgetting the incident seems to be the primary purpose.
Considering the work flow of the Board functions, none of the functions of the Board can start, regardless of urgency, community concern, or nature of the event until the following conditions are met.
From Sec. 37-32 (a) (1):
A) completion of all findings and recommendations of the internal affairs division of the department;
(B) the final decision within the department determining what, if any, disciplinary action will be taken; and
(C) if grand jury proceedings are anticipated, the conclusion of all grand jury proceedings relating to a city police officer's conduct in the incident or complaint.
And further restrictions before the Board can start investigating are:
(c) Postponement. Board review or independent investigation of any incident, complaint, or request for review, whether received by the board or director, shall be postponed pending:
(1) completion of all findings and recommendations of the internal affairs division;
(2) the final decision within the department regarding disciplinary action, if any;
(3) the conclusion of any claim or civil litigation involving the incident or complaint; and
(4) if grand jury proceedings are anticipated, the conclusion of all grand jury proceedings relating to a city police officer's conduct in the incident or complaint.
Notice the use of the word “anticipated” to delay initiation of action. A speculation about what might happened in the future by someone undefined is a reason for delaying action. Unless the District Attorney has official stated that there will be a grand jury, it remains a speculation and shouldn’t be a reason for delay. There are delays inside of delays in the municipal code.
The most severe and notorious abuses probably involve disciplinary action, litigation, grand juries, and actions in the courts. Thus, the worst cases, the most notorious, get the most delayed before CPOB can start.
Though the reasons for these delays might be that work by the CPOB might interfere with the other investigations, it isn’t clear that they would. It seems to the author that they were fishing for any and all reasons to protect the City of Dallas from liability and for reasons to delay.
For example, for the previously mentioned Margaret Hill Bridge on June 1, 2020, the CPOB could have started a case and collected information from the news about what happened, visited the Margaret Hill Bridge, found the relevant municipal codes for the Bridge and what laws might apply to the incident, gotten copies of surveillance video if any, reviewed any police body cams, gotten video from the public, gotten testimony from the public, and decide on what further information they need. This way, they have made considerable progress and are familiar with the case when the Dallas police department internal affairs issues a report.
An CPOB investigation would provide a comparison to judge the quality of the DPD investigation and to note what one report found that the other didn’t. It might be that the CPOB investigation is deficient.
[2] Curtailed subpoena power.
The CPOB is allowed to subpoena now, however, this power excludes two classes of individuals who are likely to be the most relevant: city employees and members of the police department regardless of why the CPOB might want to subpoena them.
For example, if a forensic report was obviously faulty, it might be good to have some questions as to why under oath. This couldn’t be done. If DPD internal affairs reports are chronically late or poorly done, it might be good to have some questions answers as to why under oath, especially if earlier feedback and complaints weren’t responded to in a substantial manner.
The blanket prohibition for all types of inquiries seems excessive.
There are issues where police officers and city employees have rights as citizens, but certainly some inquiries can be made to get some information without compromising their rights. Though in this matter the author of this critique isn’t a lawyer and not able to make a definitive statement.
The inability to get information with subpoena from those most likely to be relevant to the investigation seems to be a severe handicap in the CPOB in effectively achieving its goals.
[3] Response time from the City of Dallas police department and others.
In the municipal code the CPOB is directed to make requests from the Director or DPD, or forward items to them, but there is no time set for a response back from them. It might be that there are delays, but some time limit needs to be set as an expectation, and if there is a delay, a written reason needs to be submitted to the CPOB.
[4] Independent sources of information.
Currently the CPOB if they have questions about a police report, they can’t go outside the City of Dallas administration to get independent assessments. Instead, they are constrained to send their questions and inquiries to a Director appointed by the mayor. For technical information they must go through a technical resource panel selected by the City of Dallas and not themselves.
In section is Sec. 37-36 (b):
(b) Each member of the technical resource panel shall be an individual with at least 10 years of law enforcement experience in a recognized local, county, state, or federal law enforcement agency and, to the extent possible, appointments to the technical resource panel will be representative of the ethnic diversity of the city and will include individuals with substantial patrol officer experience.
The persons making up the Technical Resource Panel will be law enforcement officers and will identify with law enforcement. They may well be well meaning and intend to be fully supportive, but they likely will have their biases and a police officer perspective.
What would could be of real use for the CPOB would be the expertise of an attorney who has been involved with the filing of lawsuits over police abuse, or technical expertise in reviewing police reports.
There needs to be a budget for independent consultation and access to outside sources of information. The CPOB shouldn’t be hermetically sealed from outside information.
[5] Training and a library of technical resources:
The CPOB should have resources to get training in the form of classes, subscriptions to technical sources, and they should have a library where technical information in the form of videos, books, pamphlets, and other sources are easily available.
Knowing how to evaluate a police internal affairs report, understand forensic evidence, what best practices are for an investigation by a police review board, and other information would improve the CPOB effectiveness.
[6] Due process in expelling CPOB members.
There is no due process at this time other than the expelled board member can file an appeal which will then go through some lengthy process.
There is the issue that a member doing their job too well, could be abruptly eliminated from the board. The following would greatly help prevent this.
(i) The director of the CPOB must find at least two members to co-sign for the expulsion.
(ii) Prior to the expulsion the CPOB board member needs to be notified that the process of expulsion has started in writing and specifically the reasons why.
(iii) The City Council member who appointed the board member should be notified at the same time as the CPOB board member that the process of expulsion has started.
(iv) The CPOB board member for whom the process of expulsion has been initiated has three following business days to respond as late as midnight on the last day as to why they should not be expelled.
(v) This response by the CPOB board member for whom expulsion procedures have been initiated will be shared by the board members who co-signed the board director’s initiation of the expulsion process.
(vi) The director of the CPOB will give a written response to the board member for whom expulsion proceedings have been initiated and also state whether the expulsion proceedings have been stopped for continued within three business days. If there are questions by the director an extension in time can be given for a further reply.
(vii) The co-signers upon receiving the response form the CPOB member for whom expulsion proceedings are underway shall have three business days to respond with comments and decide whether they wish to withdraw being a co-signer or proceed. If there are no longer two co-signers for the expulsion procedure, the expulsion process stops. It can’t continue and has to be re-started.
(viii) The procedure of expulsion doesn’t continue until all the co-signers of the expulsion procedure have responded or their three days has elapsed, and the director has responded to the board member for whom expulsion proceedings are underway.
(ix) At this point the City Council member, or previously, the City Council member for the district for the CPOB board member for whom expulsion proceedings are underway, can make inquiries within three business days and expect replies in three business days. If the City Council member is out of state, additional time to make inquiries can be allocated up to four days for the City Council member being out-of-state.
(x) At this point, if the City Council member for whose district the CPOB board member for whom expulsion proceedings are underway, can ask for a vote by the Dallas City Council. Otherwise, the expulsion can proceed.
The above is a suggested procedure, and may not be the best, it is given as an example of what a due process procedure might be.
[7] Annual reports
There should be an annual report of the activities of the CPOB required in the code. It should include:
(i) A report of the incidents they dealt with, issues they had in investigation, findings, and other relevant information.
(ii) Assessment what actions they could take to be more effective if any and any additional training they might need or resources they might need.
(iii) Assessment what the Dallas police department might do to reduce issues of police abuse if any. This would include training and resources and also adequate compensation for the challenges involved.
(iv) What training they received if any, and what resources were acquired.
(v) What impediments they face in attempting to do their function.
The Dallas City Council should vote on accepting the report when issued.
In explanation for item (iii), the police shouldn’t end up with a volatile and dangerous situation where they haven’t been provided training or guidance as to what to do, and don’t have a resource, like a specialist to assist with the response or aren’t given the proper tools. This could also involve the off-loading some responsibility to some other agency. The police shouldn’t be set up to fail.
Also, item (iii) could focus on how police are put in situations where they are put on a path to some problem by police management.
Further considerations
If the CPOB has issues because of city council members being dilatory in their appointments or appointed board members not showing up additional modifications of the code need to occur. This has come up in the past.
As for appointments, the mayor might be empowered if an appointment to replace a vacancy isn’t forthcoming from a city council member in 2 months. If the mayor is dilatory for 2 months the city council could be allowed on a simple majority vote to appoint someone if an appointment isn’t forthcoming from the mayor.
If neither the city council or the mayor is unable to fill vacancies the CPOB should be allowed to fill its vacancies by a majority vote.
This is just an idea put out there, likely there are other measures that could be adopted to make sure that the CPOB isn’t made non-functional by the lack of appointments.
Further the quorum needed for the CPOB to meet and act could be reduced by the number of vacancies still unfilled after one month. This would render the failure to appoint ineffectual in suppression the CPOB ability to function.
As for poor attendance, alternates might be appointed by the city council as a whole to serve when a member doesn’t appear. This would put an end to the tactic of non-attendance to produce a failure to have a quorum.
For both problems other methods could be adopted to decisively prevent them, and these suggestions are put forth to show that it is possible to take some measures.
Summary
The above are general suggestions with discussions of how the municipal code blocks the performance of the CPOB.
These exact suggestions for improvement proposed don’t necessarily need to be adopted. These suggestions might be modified or enhanced to achieve the same objectives of improved performance.
The discussion of the exact details shouldn’t be allowed to distract from the general problems in the municipal code for the CPOB.
If we had a human rights commission for Dallas as they have had in Fort Worth since 1967, we could have a larger body of professionals review how the CPOB might be operated rather than a private individual. [Link to article on the lack of a Dallas human rights commission and a link to the petition is after the subscribe button and other links.]
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PETITION FOR A DALLAS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Click on this link to go to the petition. https://www.change.org/DallasHumanRightsCommission
