Olympia Police Accountability System under Review by City Council

author : Drew Hendricks topic : Olympia City Council | police misconduct

by Drew Hendricks

The Olympia City Council's General Government Committee met on Monday, May 16th to review the city's police accountability system and consider changes to its structure and goals. No decisions were taken at the meeting, which began at 11:30 AM on a Monday. The next scheduled General Government Committee meeting is set for June 6th, 2005 at 11:30 AM, again on a Monday. The agenda for that meeting had not yet been posted to the City's web site as of press time.

That web site address is: http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us/council/minutes/default.asp

The minutes of the meeting had not been posted as of press time, but Olympia Communications Manager Cathy Butler did forward a bullet list of actions requested of city staff. (Editor's note: outline format was renumbered by Drew, for clarity's sake.)

1) Process Flow Chart - update to reflect system changes; who does what; legal restrictions

2) Research Eugene, Portland, Seattle regarding accountability systems

3) Develop proposals for an Ombudsman and/or Expanded Auditor and/or Investigator

a) making sure info is available & people have system access to

b) a non-legal adviser/advocate who helps the complainant throughout the process to

c) an auditor/investigator who can compel additional investigation

(Goals: independence, transparency, thoroughness).

d) Provide analysis of legal implications, relationship to City's current system cost, etc.

e) Provide the analysis and/or proposals in some sort of visual format for ease of comparison.

4) Provide a proposal for dispute resolution/mediation (possibly with Dispute Resolution Center) for service complaints.

5) Provide a written explanation of how the system insures that the service complaints reviewed by the Auditor were randomly selected.

6) Develop proposals for citizen involvement:

a) An advisory committee to the chief (Curt's proposal)

b) An advisory committee or board appointed by the Council that serves as "Stewards of the Comp Plan" (TJ's proposal)

c) An Empowered Citizen Review Board (Vince Brown's proposal)

d) Citizen engagement regarding laws, such as blue laws, and the community norms/expectations for police in Olympia (Pat Tasoni's proposal)

e) The status quo

7) In the analysis, answer the question "What are we solving by creating anything?"

Background from the Staff's Agenda for the May 16th Meeting (edited for clarity and grammar, and updated by Drew):

On February 24, 2004, the Olympia City Council appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Police Accountability consisting of Council members Jeanette Hawkins, TJ Johnson, and Curt Pavola.

The committee's charge was to meet with citizens who had expressed concerns during the Public Communication portion of that evening's meeting. Those people had concerns about the City's police accountability system and the outcome of the Police Department internal investigation into a March 20, 2003 incident at the State Capitol Campus.

The Committee delivered its report, including recommendations, to the City Council and the community on November 1, 2004. One of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee was to "Refer the Ad Hoc Committee's report to the City Council's General Government Committee to develop short-term and long-term solutions." At the March 14, 2005 General Government Committee meeting, eight criteria of an effective police accountability system were identified. The Committee asked staff to add some definition to the criteria for the Committee use in discussing the desired outcomes of a police accountability system. The Committee also asked that the group of "concerned citizens" to present a written proposal to the Committee based on the criteria list. That document was completed on March 22, 2005 and presented to the Committee at the May 16th meeting. It reads, in part: "We recommend the City Council create an independent entity, a Citizens Review Board, to investigate complaints that point to problems with police policy and procedure." The document also recommended that less serious complaints be handled through dispute resolution in a less formal process, featuring direct face to face communication with the officers and people involved in the incident.