Return to Goal 4. Strengthen Social Justice

Police Reform and Accountability

Policy Recommendations to Enhance Public Safety

The history of the Richmond Police Department’s behavior and the perception of its role in the community vary widely depending on whom you speak to.

There have been times where effective leadership, such as former Chief Bill Lansdowne, has created open and frank dialogue with the community resulting in vastly improved relations between the community and the department. There have been other times when obstinacy, such as with former Chief Leo Garfield, or incompetence as with former Chief Joseph Samuels, creates an atmosphere where police abuse is rewarded resulting in a destruction of community trust and undermining the necessary partnership between the community and the police department to prevent and solve crimes.

The historic judgment against the City of Richmond in the landmark Roman – Guillory v. City of Richmond in 1982 led to the adoption of an ordinance establishing Richmond Municipal Code Chapter 3.54 – Richmond Police Commission. While innovative when established in 1983, numerous cases brought before the Richmond Police Commission have shown it past due to review and strengthen the Commission through amending the ordinance.

Since the time the Commission was established, California voters approved the so called “Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights”, changes to the California Penal Code that make disciplining peace officers almost an impossibility. Recent revelations in the California Legislature and media about the systemic corruption and systematic abuse within the California Department of Corrections, as well as recently in the City of Richmond Police Department indicated the critical need to enhance the role of civilian oversight of our employees who we give the power of lethal force.

To that end the following set of recommendations are a starting point to consider enhancing the power of the Richmond Police Commission to re-establish community trust in the Richmond Police Department and ensure timely and thorough investigations of citizen’s complaints.

I. Powers and Role of the Police Commission

The Commission should have its role as a civilian oversight body enhanced to make a real contribution to public safety in Richmond. To date, the limits imposed by the existing authorizing ordinance relegate the Commission to an advisory body to the Police Chief, as opposed to a true function of civilian command over its employees in the police department.

This twenty-year-old system ensures that, in the end, there is no real accountability in the Department for Richmond resident’s complaints. This is because the politics of maintaining the Police Chief‘s tenure require that he/she has the support of the Richmond Police Officer’s Association, thus he becomes the protector of the rank and file. This is a clear conflict of interest.

The Internal Affairs investigation and findings function has become the protector of errant police officers who have complaints filed against them by ensuring that the findings exculpate the officers. This has led to a complete loss of public confidence in the Internal Affairs process as a place to seek impartial justice.

This is the same condition that existed in 1983 when the Police Commission was established. The Richmond Police Commission was established to provide a modicum of civilian oversight of the Richmond Police Department. But because this modicum is merely advisory we find this is why there has been no fundamental change in the Department and its behavior since the inception of the Commission. To change this situation the ordinance establishing the Commission should be changed in several ways.

a. The Police Commission’s complaint investigatory authority should be expanded to include all forms of abusive and criminal behavior. This should include sexually discriminatory or abusive behavior, abusive behavior because of ones sexual orientation, national origin, linguistic difference and religious orientation. It should also be allowed to receive complaints of false arrests and routinely review of crowd management issues.
b. The Police Commission should also be the body of original jurisdiction for complaints of incidents of retaliatory harassment by police officers pursuant to an original complaint of abuse by the officers of the Department. Current policy allows the Commission to only receive retaliation and harassment complaints on appeal from Internal Affairs. Internal Affairs should be completely dismantled because it has no credibility and no function other than to cover up police abuse. Closing Internal Affairs will also result in fiscal savings to the City for what amounts to a window dressing function and a systematic protection service for abusive rank and file members of the Department and their superiors who authorize or ignore their abuses.

c. The burden of proof for the Commission to sustain complaints should be changed to a “preponderance” of evidence as opposed to “clear and convincing” evidence since most complaints are resolved thorough the civil law process, which uses the “preponderance standard as opposed to the “clear and convincing” standard used in criminal proceedings. If a sustained complaint rises to the level of “clear and convincing”, the results should be forwarded directly to the District Attorney or United States Attorney for further investigation to determine if filing of criminal charges are in order.

d. The Commission should be given the authority to subpoena members of the Department for statements during investigations and compel their testimony.

e. The Commission should be given the authority to issue disciplinary action against members of the Department found to be in violation of law, policy or procedure.

f. The Police Commission should be given the authority to interview, hire and fire the Police Chief. The staff of the Commission should be expanded to support the search and interviewing process in the hiring of a new Chief and to provide more timely investigations of complaints against the Department.

g. The Commission should be able to review and approve any promotions to Command staff. Promotions should not be approved for officers who have been identified as problematic by the Early Warning System. (See Section II)

h. The Police Commission should have the authority to approve any changes in the Department’s policies or procedures and to direct the Chief to address identified problems in the application of the policies and procedures.

i. Members of the Police Commission should be appointed, one each, by the members of the City Council, with approval by the Council as a whole.

j. Due to the enhanced responsibilities and requirements of the Commission, a fair compensation should be provided to Commissioners.

k. Adequate resources should be guaranteed to the Commission to ensure sufficient staff time and resources to conclude timely investigations. This budget item should be included as a Police Department expenditure, with amount of the item determined by the City Council, not the Police Chief nor the City Manager.

II. Policy Recommendations for Greater Accountability and Public Safety.

a. Develop an early warning system where a tally of complaints, sustained or not, received against individual officers is kept going back at a minimum of ten years to identify patterns that may indicate an officer has problems in adhering to proper procedure and to ensure proper intervention has been administered. The warning system should include prior interventions and their outcomes.

b. Establish a system where every use of force is reported and reviewed for adherence to policy and procedure.

c. Establish a strict supervision system where supervisors must sign off on every reported use of force and the supervisor’s approval or disapproval of the reported use of force.

d. Establish a monthly departmental use of force report that is forwarded by the Chief to the Police Commission, the City Council, City Manager, City Attorney and the Director of Risk Management.

e. Provide regular training to the Department staff on ameliorating issues of use of force problems identified by the Early Warning System.

f. Any plans for crowd management or control cannot be implemented without prior consultation with the Police Commission and members of the communities to be affected by the plan.

g. A hiring preference for the Department should be given to Richmond residents. A penalty, equal to the preference rate given to Richmond residents should be given to applicants who reside more than thirty miles away from the city of Richmond. A preference rating in promotions shall also be given to officers who reside in the City of Richmond. An officer who has received a residential hiring or promotion preference and subsequently moves more than thirty miles away from the City while still in the employ of the Department shall be assessed a penalty in any future promotions.

h. Officers and applicants who competently speak and write a language other than English, as determined by a written and oral examination, spoken by at least 7% of the City’s population according to the most recent national decennial census, shall be eligible to receive a bilingual pay differential. No other personnel shall be eligible for the differential.