Two highly-anticipated bills on police reform will come before the St. Louis city aldermen on Wednesday.
One would grant subpoena power to the Civilian Oversight Board, a seven-member group of appointed city residents that reviews complaints of police misconduct. The second bill would move use-of-force investigations out of the police department by creating an independent investigative unit in the Circuit Attorney’s Office.
The Public Safety Committee will hold a meeting on Wednesday, February 28 at 11 a.m. in the Kennedy Room to hear Board Bills 233 and 234.
Alderman Terry Kennedy (D-18th Ward), who chairs the committee, sponsored the 2015 legislation to create the oversight board – as well as the original 2006 bill that then-mayor Francis Slay vetoed.
After the bills were introduced on January 12, various groups came out in support, including the longtime grassroots group Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression and the Ethical Society of Police, a police association that represents majority black officers.
The St. Louis Police Officers Association, the bargaining union, opposes the bills and called them “a waste of taxpayers’ time and money, money that could be used to fight crime,” in a statement.
New Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said he supports giving subpoena power to the Civilian Oversight Board for documents and requiring the officers to come in and testify.
He also supports an independent investigation of police actions.
“I don’t believe that our officers should investigate themselves,” Edwards said. “Any appearance of impropriety lessens the public’s trust.”
The oversight board began reviewing cases in May 2016. When residents submit their complaints of police misconduct, the police department’s internal affairs division investigates them first. Then police hand over their findings to the board to review. By the end of 2017, the board had reviewed about 60 cases. In five cases, the board did not agree with police’s findings and sent letters to the police chief with recommendations.
Nicolle Barton, the executive director of the board, said last year the response from then-interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole little to none.
“For a while, it was very frustrating for me because I kept feeling like my hands were tied,” Barton said. “I would yell and scream and do all these things and try to shake the trees and nothing was happening. Now things are actually moving forward, and I feel really good about it.”
Edwards said he expects the response time from new Police Chief John Hayden will be better than O’Toole’s.
So far, the oversight board has sided with internal affairs on the majority of cases. The St. Louis American asked Barton if she thinks the board members’ perception of the events could be skewed having only reviewed the police department’s investigation. She said the board members have been “under the impression that a thorough investigation was done” by internal affairs and have not felt the need to conduct their own investigations.
Subpoena power would really come into play if the board wanted to investigate independently, Barton said. Then, they would need to be able to subpoena things like medical records or video of the incident.
Edwards said that anytime there is an investigation of one entity to another, there will be an adversarial relationship.
“The relationship should be adversarial, like any other court proceeding,” Edwards said. “We don’t want them to be disrespectful, but we do want them to be able to prove their cases and be able to evaluate and come to reasonable conclusions.”
Edwards said he will ensure the oversight board has everything it needs to do this. He will also be pushing for more transparency – including posting the reprimanded officers’ names, pictures and allegations, he said.
“When there is enough evidence to sustain an act against our officers, most of which will be disrespectful to our citizens, I want that officer’s name and even their pictures posted, saying this is the allegation,” Edwards said. “I think it’s imperative that we be transparent and we let people know.”
The bills
Board bill 233 for subpoena power is something that police-reform advocates have been pushing since the law to create the board initially passed in 2015. In a statement, the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression said subpoena power would ensure the police department’s cooperation and thorough independent investigations.
“It is important to note, however, that the current authority granted the COB already gives it the right to get all evidence and hear all testimony,” the coalition stated. “The police department would be breaking the law were it not to comply. So far, this has not happened.”
John Chasnoff, one of the coalition’s founders, said that the board has enough authority to be effective, and the community needs to insist that the board exercise the powers it already has.
The police union said they feel “double-crossed” by sponsors and supporters of the bill.
“We had a deal,” the union stated. “The law doesn’t allow for subpoena power, the COB hasn’t asked for subpoena power, and we agreed to give them records we didn’t have to give up so that the COB would have everything they needed to do a thorough investigation without subpoenas.”
Board Bill 234 would allocate one percent of the police department’s annual budget, about $1.6 million, for the independent investigations unit within the circuit attorney’s office.
CAPCR supports the bill and stated, “We have seen, time and again, that police should not be allowed to investigate themselves. Any expertise currently within the Force Investigative Unit can be learned by non-officers, and the current bill before the Board of Alders allows for protocols to be established to guarantee the sharing of that expertise.”
The union argues that both bills are illegal. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner already investigates police use of deadly force using her existing budget, the union stated.
The union’s lawyers recently filed motions in court to disqualify Gardner because she has a conflict of interest in cases where she is both investigating officers who use deadly force and prosecuting the criminals against whom they’ve used that force.
“Gardner responded by immediately clearing the officers in that case of any wrongdoing,” the union stated, “in order to avoid a full-blown hearing that likely would have resulted in a court order disqualifying her due to the inherent conflict of interest.”
CAPCR also acknowledges Gardner’s conflict of interest, but stated, “This is true when the police do these investigations currently.”
CAPCR leaders also said they would prefer that the use-of-force investigations be transferred to a wholly civilian entity because of the close working relationship between police and prosecutors.
