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Monday night's virtual CRB meeting.
The Civilian Review Board is gearing up for a showdown — or a friendly, clarifying conversation? or both? — with the Elicker Administration about exactly which types of police-misconduct complaints it is allowed to review.
That potential CRB-City Hall difference in legal opinion came up Monday night during the board’s latest regular monthly meeting, which was held online via Zoom.
The conversation and vote marked the latest in potential differences of opinion between the all-civilian police accountability review board and the Elicker Administration around whether or not the CRB should be limited to reviewing just police complaints that originate with civilians, or if the board can also review police complaints that start with the chief.
Click here for an article by the New Haven Register’s Mary O’Leary from earlier this month detailing CRB and city attorney discussions on this very matter in previous public meetings.
So far, the potential CRB-City Hall difference in legal interpretation hasn’t had any practical impact on the operations of the board, as city police Internal Affairs (IA) leaders Capt. David Zannelli and Lt. Manmeet Colon have presented all such complaints — civilian- and chief-originating alike — to the CRB.
But, as evidenced by Monday’s discussion, CRB commissioners are clearly concerned that their legal purview may soon be curtailed.
“We believe that the CRB ordinance gives us the responsibility and access to review all matters concerning potential misconduct by police officers, not just complaints by civilians,” CRB member Steve Hamm said during the meeting as he framed one of the key topics he’d like the CRB to discuss with city attorneys. “We want access to all Internal Affairs misconduct cases.”
Beaver Hills Alder and CRB member Brian Wingate said during the meeting that the alders’ intent when crafting the CRB ordinance language was to allow the board to review all police-misconduct complaints, including those that originate with civilians and the chief alike.
Thomas Breen file photo
Top city attorney Patricia King.
Meanwhile, in an email comment sent to the Independent Tuesday, top city attorney Patricia King stressed that the Elicker Administration is open to talking with the CRB about all of the their professed areas of concern, including regarding which complaints they can legally review.
“[W]e welcome the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the CRB to discuss and with the goal of resolving issues of common concern,” she wrote. “The City has a vested interest in the success of the CRB and will do all we can to further that objective.”
The CRB has scheduled a subcommittee meeting for Wednesday at 6 p.m. to discuss these legal-purview matters. Likely at the center of that discussion will be the ordinance language itself, which reads, in Sec. 2 – 673: “The civilian review board has the authority to monitor and to review and conduct independent investigations of civilian complaints of police misconduct by police officers empowered to act with municipal police powers in the City of New Haven.”
Legal Purview, Police Union Contract, FOIA
The actual vote taken by the CRB Monday night came in response to Hamm’s motion for the board to “engage” with Corporation Counsel King and Deputy Corporation Counsel Catherine Lamarr “to resolve a number of important issues.”
While the text of the motion didn’t go further than that, the board’s discussion before the vote detailed the potential gap between what the CRB and the Elicker Administration argue that the all-civilian police accountability board is legally allowed to review.
The first “topic” the board plans to review with city attorneys involves which types of complaints it can review: civilian only, or all police-misconduct complaints, regardless of where they originate.
Referring to Wingate’s confirmation that the aldermanic intent of the ordinance is to allow the CRB to review all such complaints, Hamm said, “That would be a very important piece of evidence when we meet with Patricia King.”
The second topic involves whether or not the CRB should be allowed to access evidence in ongoing IA cases, or if they should only receive access when an IA case has been closed. “We would like to be able to see evidence before that,” Hamm said.
The third involves working with King and Lamarr to “clarify matters of law and help us develop procedures.”
“There have been some concerns about conflicts of interest,” Hamm said. If the board identifies a conflict of interest, what should it do?
The fourth involves developing “procedures governing third parties we appoint to investigate cases.” According to Mary O’Leary’s reporting for the Register, the CRB clashed with City Hall when it tried to hire attorney Liam Brennan to further investigate a closed IA case.
Fifth, the board would like to know how it can best influence and recommend changes to the police union contract in upcoming negotiations between the administration and the union.
On this point, Wingate and CRB Chair Samuel T. Ross-Less stressed that the CRB cannot, and does not intend to try to, make any kind of changes to the actual police union contract. That is well outside of its legal purview. The board can, however, talk with the police department leadership in the run up to contract negotiations to talk about “some of the opportunities for change that possibly we can get to,” as Wingate put it.
Sixth, the CRB wants city guidance on how best to comply with state Freedom of Information and public meeting laws. Ross-Lee said earlier on Monday that the CRB has been hit with a Freedom of Information Commission complaint from the police union about a previous subcommittee meeting the board held. Ross-Lee said that the union contends that the officer under discussion in that meeting should have been at the subcommittee meeting. Ross-Lee said that the city corporation counsel’s office is currently looking into the complaint.
Seventh, the CRB wants city guidance on how best to share information with the press.
“Let’s explore these topics,” Hamm concluded before the board voted unanimously in support of the more general motion to talk with corporation counsel. Not all of the CRB members may agree with his own framing of each issue, Hamm said, but all agreed that these are the key areas that the CRB needs to iron out with City Hall.
I'm not sure what Brian Wingate was thinking when he helped pass this law, but the language is clear; the CRB has the authority to review civilian complaints, not Internal Affairs.