Civilian review board needs more power

Dan Devine

A coalition of civil rights organizations working for public oversight of the Boston Police Department sent its recommendations to Mayor Thomas M. Menino on Tuesday on the city’s Civilian Review and Mediation Program.

The recommendations share a single theme: for civilian review to work, the city’s panel of ombudsmen must be built on a culture of openness and independence far beyond what has been proposed by Menino.

 The recommendations come eight days after Menino appointed New England School of Law Dean John F. O’Brien, Northeastern University law professor David Hall and former state Parole Board member Ruth Suber to the three-member civilian panel charged with reviewing reports of misconduct by members of the Boston Police Department that are dismissed by the BPD’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD).

Menino declined comment on the recommendations.

In their Jan. 30 letter, the American Friends Service Committee, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law of the Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild commended the “excellent choices” to staff the panel.

But, they argued, “the ombudsmen will best be able to fulfill their mission if the civilian review panel operates in the open and effective manner that we propose.”

“We continue to believe that for truly meaningful oversight, Boston needs a separate and independent board with the authority to accept both complaints and appeals of IAD decisions,” the letter states. “In order to do so, an independent board would need the authority, funds and staffing to conduct its own investigations, subpoena witnesses (including police officers) and recommend discipline.”

The lack of any independent investigative abilities, subpoena power and jurisdiction to make disciplinary decisions has led the civil rights coalition to question how much authority the mayor’s board will actually have, a question emphasized repeatedly in their recommendations.

In the mayor’s proposal, the review board’s reach extends only to those cases in which IAD does not sustain a civilian’s complaint. The group recommends the panel review all cases where Internal Affairs rules against a complainant — an important difference, because BPD rules cite four possible outcomes to an Internal Affairs complaint: sustained; not sustained; “unfounded,” meaning that the action in the complaint did not occur or “exonerated,” meaning the action under review did occur, but investigation revealed that the action was proper, legal and reasonable.

So while there are three ways for IAD to dismiss a citizen’s complaint, under the mayor’s plan the ombudsmen would only be able to review cases tossed out under one label — leaving the other two exempt from oversight. The coalition sees this as no way to build community trust.

“The BPD itself, in its 2005 Annual Report, acknowledged that ‘not sustained’ is ‘the weakest finding, as it reflects the inability to prove or disprove the allegations,’” the letter states. “In the event of serious allegations, it will make little difference to the public whether Internal Affairs exonerated an officer or decided that it couldn’t make a decision either way. The public will only see that the complaint was denied.”

Other recommendations include a public information campaign — complete with public service announcements on local radio and television stations and letters to every household in Boston — to make the general public aware that the review board is up and running.

In addition, the coalition recommended improving access to the review process by allowing civilians to submit complaints through organizations or agencies not affiliated with the city or the BPD, including community service centers, advocacy groups and the clergy.

“Too often civilians who attempt to file complaints describe how they are given misinformation about their ability to do so or are discouraged or intimidated,” the letter states. “While we hope that the public will feel comfortable approaching the panel directly, they should still be given the option of submitting their appeals by way of an outside entity in order to encourage participation in the process.”

The potential of police intimidation also led the group to suggest the civilian review board be located on a neutral territory, rather than at City Hall or a Boston police facility.

The group’s strongest recommendations focus on the city, the police and the review board making information about IAD complaints and appeals for review readily accessible to the public.

Acknowledging the annual reports the review board is charged with making to the mayor and police commissioner — which are to be made public — as a good starting point, the group calls for ongoing public updates of the board’s activities through the creation of a Web site that would list the panel’s operating procedures, biographical information about the ombudsmen, a sample appeal form and information on filing appeals.

They also suggest monthly updates on a variety of appeal statistics, including complainants’ races, genders, ages and ZIP codes; incident locations; the number of new appeals received, pending and resolved, as well as quarterly and annual reports providing more in-depth analysis.

The final recommendation — improving the quality of information made public by IAD — reaches beyond the scope of the civilian review board, “but would greatly enhance the panel’s work and the public’s confidence,” according to the coalition.

“The panel needs comprehensive information about IAD’s activities in order to best review its work,” the letter states. “This same information should be available to the public.”