Police need to be held accountable by civilians
One missing element in many jurisdictions is effective, independent and fair civilian oversight of law enforcement departments
The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on May 25 set off a firestorm of protests, some of which devolved into dangerous civil unrest and riots. After a long line of African American deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers, the Black community and their allies have momentum in advancing the Black Lives Matter movement.
In so doing, they argue an absence of race neutrality in policing and the justice system are indicators of racism in general. Police officers and their supervisors feel under attack. Some civil jurisdictions are embarking on a rolling wave of “defunding” (reorganization) initiatives designed to demilitarize police forces and shift certain functions away from police.
The future of effective and just policing in America hangs in the balance. One missing element in many jurisdictions is effective, independent, fair civilian oversight of police departments.
Virginia Beach experienced a watershed moment in civilian-police relations when the 1989 Greekfest turned violent. The annual Labor Day celebration attracted thousands of college students, particularly from African American fraternities and sororities, and college-age tourists, with students cruising the Virginia Beach strip for a weekend of end of summer fun.
The celebration that year turned into riots causing more than $1 million in property damage. After-action reviews found that police reactions included heavy-handed and escalatory tactics, fueling the perception of racial bias. One of the results of the Greekfest debacle was the formation of the city’s Investigation Review Panel in 1991.
While Virginia Beach leads the seven cities in terms of civilian oversight, the Investigation Review Panel’s powers and authority are woefully inadequate to the task, as though the IRP was designed as a token gesture, with no real power to hold the police department accountable.
The panel is provided cases for review only after the police department’s internal affairs organization has completed its investigation, often many months later. The IRP has no ability to compel witnesses or production of evidence. It relies only on the information provided by the complainant and the city, and there is no verbatim transcript generated which the press could then examine to determine newsworthiness.
When the IRP votes and transmits recommendations back to the chief of police and city manager, there is no feedback loop and no requirement for either city officer to do anything in response to the IRP’s recommendation. If you were creating a process that appears to be an accountability mechanism, while providing minimal real oversight, the Virginia Beach IRP is what you would construct.
Thirty years later, while the Virginia Beach Investigation Review Panel remains the paper tiger it was designed to be, surrounding jurisdictions such as Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Norfolk have no standing civilian oversight body at all.
Civilian oversight has proven effective in cities nationwide, as it provides standing to citizens to express to the police those policing techniques, practices and standards the public deems unacceptable. It is another mode of political and social control over the police.
Police oversight boards should include diverse representatives from across the spectrum — former and retired police officers and investigators, civil rights and legal experts, sociologists, clergy, professionals and blue-collar representatives, and, most critically, representatives from the population being policed.
Civilian oversight mechanisms should, of course, accept input from professionals on technical and cultural issues related to policing, but ultimately police organizations must be responsive and accountable to the will of the citizenry. Finally, the commonwealth and federal governments could incentivize the formation and professionalization of civilian review boards by providing operating grants to jurisdictions which meet minimum standards of fairness and accountability.
Reforming the Virginia Beach Investigation Review Panel, and installing fair, transparent and powerful police accountability and oversight mechanisms in other Hampton Roads jurisdictions, would go a long way toward bridging the police-citizen gap and open lines of communication, while providing accountability. Policing is a profession, but it is not one that is exempt from civilian accountability.
Butch Bracknell, a career
Marine Corps officer, served as the chair of the Virginia Beach Investigation Review Panel for two years and as a member of the city’s Personnel Board, the grievance board for the city employees, for almost four years. He now chairs an ad hoc police grievance board in Norfolk.