Send Back Civilian Review Bill To Get It Right

(Opinion) In April of 1997 Malik Jones, a 21 year-old unarmed black man was shot in New Haven by an East Haven police officer four times at point-blank range. The officer who killed Malik never faced criminal charges. It’s been over 20 years since Malik’s death that advocates have been appealing the City of New Haven to create a real Civilian Review Board as a tool for greater police oversight and accountability.

On Monday night New Haven’s Board of Alders will consider passage of a Civilian Review Board (CRB) ordinance. The proposal currently on the table is to create an ineffective and impotent CRB and should be sent back to committee and strengthened.

Over 100 people attended the public hearing on this version of the CRB in mid-November. Almost every person spoke against the existing proposal and rallied in support of strengthening the ordinance by granting the CRB the power of subpoena to independently investigate complaints from citizens. In a surprising twist, even New Haven Chief of Police Anthony Campbell testified that he was open to the changes proposed by those, including myself, who testified.

The committee closed public testimony and then remarkably moved forward the proposed ordinance virtually unchanged without heeding any of the testimony. Those few alders who explained their reasoning raised unfounded concerns about the legality of subpoena power. The City’s corporation counsel himself in a 2015 legal opinion said the legal foundation for granting the CRB subpoena power is strong. 

Why is an independent Civilian Review Board important? After all, doesn’t New Haven claim to be the birthplace of community policing? Don’t we already have accountability?

Without a doubt the New Haven police department’s connection with the community in many ways is strong. I’ve had many positive interactions with police officers in my role as alder and involved community member. District managers and their officers are responsive, compassionate, concerned, and proactive. But even I, a white male, have had a number of interactions as a private citizen where officers were rude, disrespectful and even accusatory. On one occasion when I called to report property damage, the police officer began to question me as if I were the perpetrator. And a friend of mine (who is white) was held at gunpoint by an officer who mistook him for someone else. After determining my friend was not the perpetrator, the officer let my friend go without even an apology.

Now I know from my black and brown friends that my experiences are minor irritations compared to theirs. While some may say that the police aren’t biased, overwhelming evidence indicates the contrary – because overwhelming evidence indicates that we all are biased. This has been proven time and again in academic studies in the way an employer is less likely to hire someone with a typically black name, in the way a nursery school teacher unknowingly keeps a particular eye on a black boy when looking for misbehavior, and yes, in police officers’ tendency to use more force with black suspects than white.

The fact that we all have biases doesn’t mean we act on them. Self-awareness and training can help neutralize these tendencies. And the fact that individual police hold implicit biases isn’t itself proof that police engaged in misconduct.

But the existence of implicit bias underscores just how important it is for communities of color to have the tools they need to ensure fair treatment – especially from police who are tasked to protect and keep them safe.

Over the years in New Haven there have been incidents that are deeply concerning for abuse of police power: from questionable use of tasers and police dogs in nonviolent situations, to an officer slamming a handcuffed 15 year-old girl to the ground, to officers shooting off their guns after drinking at a bar, and even the seemingly minor incident that occurred last week where officers told people standing on the sidewalk they had to show their IDs. While not every one of these incidents may be determined to be an abuse of police power, without a powerful CRB the community can rely only on the police department policing its own to determine as much.

That isn’t true accountability. What’s more, in recent months the number of officers arrested on charges of domestic abuse is an indication that individual police officers are fallible and imperfect.

The Power Of Subpoenas

So why is a strong Civilian Review Board with subpoena power important?

Because real police accountability through a strong CRB balances the power dynamic between police and citizens – in particular citizens of color who are disproportionately implicated in policing issues. Subpoena power allows the CRB to conduct investigations independent of the police department by compelling appearances of evidence and potential witnesses.

And just as Ferguson, Cleveland, and Chicago need more balance in this power dynamic, so too do we in New Haven.

A strong Civilian Review Board will in fact strengthen the trust between the community and police. It will ensure that those few officers who abuse their power are held accountable, that community members have an avenue to have their complaints heard by an unbiased party and feel they have been heard. And it does not conflict with the police department as a whole because its job will be to root out bad actors, something the overwhelming majority of police officers should welcome. It will also help us avoid excessive force lawsuits that have cost many cities including our own millions of dollars in settlement fees.

The possibility of New Haven experiencing another incident like Malik’s shooting is real. Consider the deep hurt and anger caused when Bridgeport police shot and killed Jayson Negron just last year. What will define our success or failure in such a moment are decisions that we make not then, but now.

Trust between community and police isn’t built overnight. It takes deliberate actions and an uprooting of the systems and balance of power in place. It is clear that many in New Haven’s police department are genuine and open towards this goal.

Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow writes: ​“Law enforcement must adopt a compassionate humane approach to the problems of the urban poor – an approach that goes beyond the rhetoric of ​‘community policing’ to a method of engagement that promotes trust, healing and genuine partnership.” New Haven citizens crave this equal partnership — so much so that in a 2013 citywide referendum to revise the charter over 71percent of city residents voted to support the creation of a CRB.

For the benefit of all – the community and the police department – the Board of Alders should correct course on Monday by sending the proposal back to committee to strengthen the ordinance and the CRB.

Justin Elicker (at center in photo), executive director of the New Haven Land Trust, is a former alder and mayoral candidate.