JEFF WILLHELM -
jwillhelm@charlotteobserver.com
City councilmen David Howard
(left) and Warren Cooksey (right) listen to a presentation on the Citizens
Review Board in August. JEFF WILLHELM - jwillhelm@charlotteobserver.com
The City Council is poised to
approve an ordinance that would overhaul the Citizens Review Board, nine months
after an Observer investigation showed the police oversight board has never
sided with citizens.
The city manager’s office is
recommending approval, and a grassroots organization that has lobbied the
council for reform is planning a victory party afterward.
“We’re thrilled,” said Matt
Newton, one of the organizers for CRB Reform Now. “Certainly, the ordinance
itself can be improved upon, but as far as the essential tools to raise an
effective board, they will be there. In our minds, it’s a huge victory for the
city.”
The 11-member volunteer board
hears complaints from people dissatisfied with disciplinary decisions following
Internal Affairs investigations by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. City Council
established the board 16 years ago to restore public confidence in the
department after three unarmed African-Americans were killed by white officers.
Since the board was created,
citizens have appealed 79 cases to the board, and almost all of them have been
dismissed without receiving a full hearing.
Under the new recommendations,
citizens would no longer face unusually strict criteria to get full hearings.
They would no longer have to prove that a “preponderance of the evidence” shows
the police chief abused his discretion. With the changes, they would have to
prove only “the greater weight of evidence” indicates “the chief of police
clearly erred.”
In April, then-Mayor Anthony
Foxx asked a city task force to meet with police, the Charlotte School of Law
and citizens to consider re-crafting the ordinance that affects the Citizens
Review Board. The months-long process yielded a statute that doesn’t go as far
as some advocates for change wanted. The board, for example, will not have
independent subpoena or investigative powers.
But the city’s Community
Relations Committee will have access to the department’s investigative file
when the Citizens Review Board hears a complaint