PASADENA >> Community leaders have enlisted the help of a national
police oversight organization in a renewed push to have citizen review of the
Pasadena Police Department.
Community activists have asked for police oversight with little success
since the 2009 officer involved shooting of Leroy Barnes.
The effort, spearheaded by the local chapter of the ACLU, gained steam once
again over the past few months with the help of Councilman John Kennedy. He has
requested that the council commission an independent study on the issue.
Councilwoman Jacque Robinson also changed her tune on the issue this week,
expressing interest in at least looking into some kind of citizen advisory body
for the police.
Kris Ockerhauser, of the Pasadena ACLU, said after the City Council
declined to go forward with Kennedy’s proposal for a feasibility study, she
decided to take the matter into her own hands.
“I was, frankly, as I think were most of us who work in Northwest on police
issues, very off put by the flat denial of any kind of consideration of even a
study to see if Pasadena needs some kind of citizen oversight,” Ockerhauser
said. “I felt that well they can decide that but we don’t have to abide by
that. We can go ahead and educate ourselves and find out more about how it
works in other places and how it might work here.”
Those involved in the discussion so far include about 12 people
representing All Saints Church, the local NAACP, the Pasadena Community
Coalition, The Flintridge Center and the Pasadena League of Women Voters,
Ockerhauser said.
The group recently met with Brian Buchner, a representative from the
National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), and
plans to have several future meetings in the new year.
Buchner, who works for the Los Angeles County Inspector General’s Office,
said his role in consulting with the group is to provide a variety of different
examples and options for police oversight, and show how it has worked in other
communities.
“We do advocate for oversight of the police, but we also don’t come into a
community and say this is exactly what you need to do,” Buchner said. “Our
position is that oversight needs to reflect the needs of the community and the
community broadly defined includes community organizations like the groups at
the meeting, it includes law enforcement, it includes civic leaders in the
city.”
Other cities listed on the NACOLE website as examples of citizen oversight
include Inglewood, Long Beach, San Diego and Claremont.
Pasadena Deputy Police Chief Darryl Qualls is the vice chairman of the
Claremont Police Commission. The commission was formed in 2000, a year after a
controversial officer-involved shooting resulted in the slaying of an
18-year-old black man.
Qualls did not respond to a call for comment Wednesday.
Pasadena Councilman Steve Madison and Police Chief Phillip Sanchez have
expressed opposition to a citizen oversight group for the department, arguing
that the council’s four member Public Safety Committee is sufficient. A citizen
committee that previously worked with the police was disbanded in 2010 after
the city declined to release the names of the people who sat on the secret
panel. The request was made by this newspaper.
“Resistance to oversight either by elected officials or law enforcement
officials is unfortunately not unique,” Buchner said. “I think there can be a
sense of uncertainty about what oversight looks like ... and because of the uncertainty you have a certain
level of fear among people to change what they believe is a process that
already works.”
Others involved in the discussion say that uncertainty is part of the
reason they were interested in participating in the meetings.
“I think that we, like so many entities in the community, also want to
consider what it might look like for Pasadena to have something like this, but
I think there is a lot more learning that needs to happen before we can
officially stand for or against such a commission,” said Juliana Serrano,
director of the Office for Creative Connections for All Saints Church.
“It certainly seems like a great possibility,” Serrano said. “We know that
community oversight of various community entities has proven to be beneficial.”
Ockerhauser said though she still supports a professional, city-funded
study, she hopes to be able to bring back some information to the Council or
Public Safety Committee to better inform them — and hopefully sway them — on
the issue.
“I think there is a chance council really doesn’t understand the variety of
possibilities that are out there,” she said. “I don’t really understand why
there is such opposition to this.”
