Mayor finally OKs police review board

Dan Devine

Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced plans last Thursday to appoint a three-member civilian board to review reports of police misconduct, a decision many hope will help restore the fractured trust between city residents and the Boston Police Department.

Menino said he would begin reviewing candidates for the new Civilian Review and Mediation Board immediately and that it could take several weeks to settle on the board’s three members.

While the mayor has yet to define the selection criteria for board members, criminal defense attorney Stephen Hrones suggests the panel should favor input from community members and legal professionals familiar with police misconduct cases over law enforcement officials.

“I’d say the three-person panel should include one member of the plaintiffs bar, a member of the black community and a layman, a distinguished citizen with no [political] ties,” Hrones said. “The police are being reviewed, and if you had law enforcement on the board reviewing themselves, it would be very difficult to establish the belief in the community that this board provides an honest and fair review.”

Recent developments — most notably last month’s arrest of three veteran BPD officers on federal drug trafficking charges and the announcement that 75 officers have failed annual departmental drug tests since their 1999 inception— have renewed the call for stronger civilian oversight.

Things got worse for the BPD last Friday night, when WHDH-TV Channel 7 aired surveillance footage from a robbery of the Newbury Street boutique Solstice that seemed to show responding investigator Detective Sgt. Daniel Keeler stealing sunglasses from a display. Keeler is currently under investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD).

The board will review all allegations of serious misconduct that are dismissed by IAD. Less serious cases will also be eligible for review if a citizen appeals an Internal Affairs decision. The city aims to make Internal Affairs misconduct complaint forms and materials more accessible to citizens by translating them into several languages and posting them on the city’s website.

Community leaders have applauded Menino, calling his announcement a step in the right direction, but it is unclear how the law enforcement community feels. Representatives from the BPD, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association and the Massachusetts Fraternal Order of Police all declined comment. A message left with the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers was not returned.

“I hope the police department doesn’t see it as an indictment as much as an indication of a need to build that trust,” said state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who called the board’s establishment “a huge positive development,” particularly in light of the a precipitous rise in violent crime over the past year.

BPD crime statistics released Aug. 27 show 70 more homicides and non-fatal shootings in Boston thus far in 2006 than on the same date one year ago. Some have suggested that a lack of faith in police has made community residents less willing to come forward, making it more difficult for officers to stem the rising tide of violence.

“I think it’s common knowledge [that] there are many people who have witnessed firsthand or heard information that, if reported to the police, could help them,” Wilkerson said. “What’s most troubling is that it’s now adults as well who no longer have a level of trust sufficient enough that they would give [police] information that they held.

Wilkerson continued, “This is not just the gang bangers. This is Ms. Smith, and Mrs. Jones, and Mr. Johnson next door, who have been there and are concerned about the violence, but are more concerned about going to the police department.”

While the review board will be able to make recommendations to the police commissioner and ask investigators to revisit citizen complaints, it will not have the power to conduct its own investigations or issue subpoenas. But Hrones said the board could have a significant impact even without subpoena power.

“[The board] can look at all the paperwork from a dismissal and find out if the case was improperly dismissed. That’s big,” Hrones said. “It sends a message to Internal Affairs that they have to look more closely at cases. I imagine there will be a lot more sustained complaints.”

A June City Council ordinance submitted by Felix D. Arroyo, Chuck Turner and Charles C. Yancey called for a 13-member review board with full discretion to investigate and recommend resolutions to complaints alleging police misconduct. They also called for the “power to compel the Boston Police Department to produce appropriate personnel for interview” and “subpoena civilian witnesses and those police officers who are identified” in a complaint.

While Arroyo prefers the stronger board he and his fellow councilors suggested, he does feel that this is a good start.

“I believe that to develop direct trust from the community, there needs to be a role outside the police in the investigations and a place where citizens could talk to civilians and not just to the police,” Arroyo said. “[But] it’s important that the door has been opened.”

Independent oversight of police officers has been a hotly contested issue in Boston for nearly 20 years. The only current external recourse for citizens who feel they have been mistreated is the Community Affairs Board, a joint police-civilian committee created after the 1992 St. Clair Commission to review IAD investigations. That board — which, like the new version, lacks subpoena power and independent investigators — is now considered irrelevant, rarely used due to roadblocks that prevent complainants from getting information in IAD files necessary to make a successful appeal. It hasn’t convened in years.

At first, Menino resisted creating a new board, reportedly worried that a strong external watchdog would be overly critical of officers. Wilkerson said the mayor’s move from total objection to the board to pronouncing its establishment shows that Menino is choosing “the practical over the politics.”

“I think many of the critics of the Mayor who questioned his handling of this … were silenced last week when he made this announcement,” Wilkerson said.

Menino called the move “an important step in the process of people having faith in the review of complaints that go to the department.”

In the current process, people who feel they have been mistreated by police officers can file complaints with IAD, which investigates the cases, decides whether officers should be found guilty of misconduct and makes recommendations to the commissioner about discipline. When officers are found not guilty or there is insufficient evidence to support a guilty ruling, the complaints are dismissed.

The new board’s members will be given case files and can direct investigators to re-interview witnesses or investigate further in certain areas. If they still have concerns about an investigation after that, they can ask the police commissioner to intervene. If they find that IAD handled the case properly, the complaint process ends.

The board will make an annual report to the mayor, which will be available to the public. According to city officials, the report will include statistics on the number of cases handled, a critique of the police misconduct complaint process, and recommendations for any improvements deemed necessary.