This, this report, dreamt up by
Sharon “Show me the money” Bulova, is a toothless tiger all done for show at
the expense of good and well-meaning people.
The cops aren’t required to do
anything this report recommends nor will they do anything recommended in this
report.
Look, this is very simple. Put
body cameras on the idiots, fire the chief of police and bring someone in from
way, way, way outside the beltway to run things. Problem solved.
Report: Fairfax police need ‘real
change — now’ in public communications
By Tom Jackman
A committee assigned to examine
how the Fairfax County Police Department communicates with the public has
issued a blunt report which pulls no punches: “Real change is needed — now,”
the report says, criticizing the police for their “lip service to the idea of
transparency” on both breaking incidents and routine information requests.
“It is well past time for the
Fairfax County Police Department to start providing timely, honest and
effective communications with everything it does,” the new report declares. “We
deserve nothing less.”
The report was issued by one of
five subcommittees formed within the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission,
formed by Fairfax Chairman Sharon Bulova in March after public outcry over the
lack of information or movement in the still unresolved police shooting of John
Geer in Springfield. Geer was shot and killed by Officer Adam D. Torres in
August 2013 as he stood unarmed in the doorway of his home, but police refused
to discuss the case or even disclose the officer’s name until January 2015,
after Geer’s family sued Fairfax police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. for
wrongful death. A special grand jury is scheduled to begin hearing testimony on
the case Monday.
In addiion to the Ad Hoc
commission, an analysis of the Fairfax police’s use of force policies by the
Police Executive Research Forum — requested by Roessler before the Geer
shooting, but not launched until July 2014 — resulted in 71 recommended changes
to the policies, and Roessler said he would make 70 of them. The changes are
not drastic, but one in particular could be transformative: A suggestion that
Fairfax not begin its training of new recruits with the mechanics of firing a
gun, as it does now.
“PERF believes it is important to
change this approach,” executive director Chuck Wexler wrote. “The first days
and weeks of recruit training should focus on the most significant issues,
concepts and values of policing in a democratic society,” to include the role
of police in protecting constitutional rights, the sanctity of human life,
use-of-force policies and crisis intervention strategies.
Wexler presented the report to
the Ad Hoc commission last month, even though it has its own “Use of Force”
subcommittee devising its own report. The following week, at the subcommittee’s
meeting, Roessler said he embraced the PERF report, which also calls for
revamping the way officers decide whether to use force and increasing the
number of officers trained to deal with mentally disturbed subjects. Lawyer and
commissioner Joseph Cammarata asked the chief whether he would do more than
just issue new directives, but actually provide direct training on the new
approaches.
“Will you be retraining everybody
on use of force?” Cammarata asked.
“I have to. Yes,” Roessler said.
In addition to use of force, the
Ad Hoc commission is focusing on four other areas: communications; mental
health and crisis intervention training;recruitment, diversity and vetting; and
independent oversight and investigations. All five subcommittees are to submit
reports and recommendations to the full 34-member commission, for presentation
to the Board of Supervisors on Oct. 1, and the communications committee weighed
in first with a powerful analysis and detailed recommendations to overhaul the
way Fairfax police communicate with their community.
“Communications in recent high-profile
use-of-force and critical incident cases were mishandled, inadequate and
untimely” the report states, “leading to loss of public trust and questions
about the legitimacy of police actions…If the department had policies that
fostered real transparency, it’s unlikely the controversies in recent years
would have lasted so long and there likely would not have even been a call to
form this commission.”
The committee calls on the Board
of Supervisors to “insist on policies that lean toward releasing information as
soon as possible,” whether in daily communications, during a significant event
or in a Freedom of Information Act request, which it says the police have a
“blanket approach” of rejecting records requests whenever legally able to do
so. “There must be significant change coming from the leadership of the county
and the Fairfax County Police Department,” Fitzgerald’s committee wrote.
Among the specific
recommendations, the committee urges police to release the names of officers
involved in shootings within a week, saying the national average is two days,
and to immediately release all video and audio recordings if a citizen is
killed. The committee also calls on the police to shorten the current 6-20
month timeframe to internally investigate officer-involved shootings and be
responsive to questions from the public and news media. In the Geer case, the
Fairfax police rejected numerous requests for the name of the officer and only
released it after it was ordered provided to Geer’s family by a judge, 16
months after the shooting. The internal investigation of Torres remains open 10
months after it was begun.
Virginia’s Freedom of Information
law allows law enforcement agencies to withhold any information in a “criminal
investigative file” indefinitely, though it has the discretion to release it as
well. Fairfax police, with the guidance of the Fairfax County attorney, have
long rejected all requests for police reports of any type. Earlier this month,
longtime deputy county attorney Peter D. Andreoli Jr. advised Fitzgerald’s
committee that if they wanted to change that approach, they should go to
Richmond and change the law.
The committee ignored that suggestion.
Instead, they called on the Board of Supervisors to “publicly adopt a
resolution…to revisit FOIA laws with an eye toward expanding instead of
limiting the public release of information related to police-involved shootings
and other police practices and procedures related to official police
activities…changing the current policy of automatically withholding all exempt
records.”
Roessler read the report and
said, “I don’t have a negative reaction to this. Some of the items we have been
implementing already,” such as seeking to hire a permanent civilian spokesman,
rather than a rotating police commander, and starting to shift the officer
handling FOIA requests from the internal affairs unit to the public information
office.
Roessler said he appreciated the
feedback from members of the community and wanted to keep them active and
available to advise him after the Ad Hoc commission formally disbands. The
communications report suggested the Board of Supervisors hold community forums
every six months starting next year to review the progress Fairfax police are
making on the commission’s recommendations, and Roessler said he agreed with
that.
Fitzgerald, who was the county’s
main spokesperson for 14 years until her retirement last year, said, “Mistakes
have been made. So moving foward, the easier part will be to change things like
policies, procedures, staffing. The harder part will be changing the culture.
And to get the culture of transparency we deserve and want to see is going to
make some people uncomfortable.”
Can the Fairfax police change a
culture where the tendency is often to release the least amount of information
possible? “I understand what they’re saying,” Roessler said. He said he was
pushing for a greater presence in social media and quicker release of breaking
news. Both he and Fitzgerald noted that the police have provided vast amounts
of data and cooperation to the Ad Hoc commission.
But what about releasing actual
police reports, virtually never done now? “I’m considering a change,” Roessler
said. “There’s got to be more dialogue about how we respond to this. This is a
national dialogue, and the profession needs to change. I need to help this
department change. This is the community’s voice and I need to actively listen
and implement where I can.”
After the commission compiles the
five committee reports and submits a full report to the Board of Supervisors on
Oct. 1, the police will have about three weeks to prepare a detailed response
on how they plan to handle the report’s recommendations. The supervisors’
public safety committee will then have a rare meeting on Oct. 27, a week before
Election Day, to discuss what they will ask the police to implement.
Do the police have to do the
supervisors’ bidding? “I report to them,” Roessler said. “They can work with me
to direct policy changes. That’s their prerogative, and they’re my employer. I
don’t see any conflict with getting these recommendations in place.”
The commissioners on the
communications subcommittee, chaired by Fitzgerald, are Deputy Chief Tom Ryan,
police assistant spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell, current county spokesman Tony
Castrilli, lawyers Doug Kay and Eric Clingan, Connection newspapers publisher
Mary Kimm, former WUSA-9 reporter and current blogger Dave Statter, Tim
Thompson and Daniela Cockayne from the county’s federation of citizens
association and police homicide Det. John Wallace. Non-commissioners also
serving are Darryl Drevna, Patrick Smaldore, Brennan Murphy, Jose Santos and
Darryl Dennis.
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