By: Erica Zucco
One of three Police Oversight
Commissioners who stepped down from the group today called the commission a
“mockery” of real civilian oversight.
All three of them said the
group has no power, citing an April 10 message from the city attorney’s office
as the final straw. They say they do not want to deceive citizens into thinking
they do have effective civilian oversight.
“I think they're frustrated
cause they're just not getting the kind of power and oversight that they need
and so we're seeing people resign,” Ralph Arellanes of LULAC, who served on a
task force to reform the POC, said.
Peter Simonson of the ACLU was
on that task force too.
“We felt the police oversight
commission and the Independent review office, in whatever way shape or form
they take, should form a single system and ultimately that the IRO should
respond to, be supervised by, the oversight body,” Simonson said.
That task force created
eighteen recommendations, some of which city council is working on now. But
most of the recommendations haven’t been put into action by city officials.
In the meantime, Richard Shine,
Jennifer Barela and Jonathan Siegel resigned from the commission.
“It's unfortunate, maybe it's
inevitable. The situation we have currently, we know that the POC and the IRO
are in a state of complete uncertainty as they wait to see what the city
council plans to do,” Simonson said. “They were extremely frustrated with the
way in which the city attorney's office has construed the relationship between
the IRO and the POC, construed the power of the POC to weigh in on policy
matters and obtain certain kinds of data from the police department and so I
think all of their concerns were completely legitimate, I can totally
understand why they had the reaction they did and I know both Mr. Siegel and
Mr. Shine and I think they are upstanding individuals, devoted to their
community.”
In their letters, all three
resigning commissioners said they hope the city will take action to reform the
POC.
“I think they truly wanted to
see an effective civilian oversight body process here in the city of
Albuquerque and I think it’s a shame to lose them from the civilian oversight
process. I hope that they can remain engaged because really they have committed
literally thousands of hours on our community's behalf,” Simonson said.
3 Albuquerque police oversight
members resign
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Half
of the members of Albuquerque's Police Oversight Commission have resigned,
citing a lack of independence and inability to provide any real citizen
oversight of the troubled department.
The resignations Tuesday by
three members of the civilian review board come less than a week after the U.S.
Justice Department issued a scathing report on what it called excessive force
and a culture of abuse and aggression at the Police Department. Albuquerque
officers have shot at 37 men since 2010, killing 23.
The report also criticized the
city's oversight system and limited powers in investigating cases of
questionable police conduct.
Oversight commission members
Jennifer Barela, Jonathan Siegel and Richard Shine sent their letters of
resignation to Mayor Richard Berry, leaving just three members on the
nine-member panel, which had three vacancies. Each city council member has the
ability to appoint a member to the commission.
In his letter, Siegel said a
series of decisions by the city attorney's office gives the board little power
to do more than ratify the recommendations of an independent review officer,
who Siegel says is "fully aligned with the chief of police."
"I cannot continue to
pretend or deceive the members of our community into believing that our city
has any real civilian oversight," he wrote.
Albuquerque's chief
administrative officer, Rob Perry, thanked the commission members for their
service and said, "We are hopeful that the City Council, which created
this board and nominates its members, will work in consultation with the DOJ in
continued efforts to reform and implement needed changes."
