Pasadena leaders seek national consult on police oversight


By Lauren Gold, Pasadena Star-News
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.”