Fairfax County approves executive
director position for police review panel
David TaubeAugust 3, 2021 at 2:00pm
The
Fairfax County Police Civilian Review Panel, a
citizen-led board intended to help with police accountability, is getting an
executive director.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the change on July 27 at the
urging of the review panel, which is facing increasing caseloads and seeking to
gain investigatory powers.
“We’re thrilled that this new position will
help us maintain our independence,” Civilian Review Panel Chair Jimmy Bierman
said, thanking Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay and Lee District
Supervisor Rodney Lusk, who chairs the board’s public safety committee.
Established in December 2016, the civilian review panel
reviews Fairfax County Police Department investigations into civilian complaints
with allegations that a police officer abused their authority or engaged in
misconduct.
While the panel can make recommendations
regarding law enforcement policies and practices, it was not granted the authority to
conduct its own investigations.
The review panel, which consists of nine
volunteers, documented in February its need for an executive director in
an annual report and a four-year review, a document that Bierman
spent three months of 40-hour weeks to develop.
The executive director will help the panel
document and summarize investigations. Currently, the panel reviews police
investigations in person and writes lengthy, time-consuming reports, which
means its efforts are heavily dependent on its chair’s schedule.
Bierman, an attorney, likens the change to a
congressional committee relying on staff to help draft materials or a federal
judge using legal staff to write bench memos.
“It adds to the professionalism of the panel,”
he said. “We want to be fiercely independent.”
Since its creation, the review panel has also
relied on staff in the office of the independent police auditor, which will now
send one position to the panel for the executive director.
Bierman says the staffing switch will help the
panel maintain a good working relationship with police by ensuring the
independent police auditor’s resources are not overtaxed.
The change to the panel comes after the
Virginia General Assembly adopted a law last year that
officially permitted localities to create police oversight boards with the
power to investigate incidents, make binding disciplinary determinations, and
more.
Bierman says the law shows the Commonwealth is
serious about supporting independent oversight bodies for police.
The new executive director won’t have
independent investigatory powers, but the position could lay the groundwork for
the Board of Supervisors to update the panel’s bylaws to give it more authority, as
allowed by the new state law, according to Bierman.
The person hired for the new position will be
paid $100,000 to $150,000 per year and report directly to the board of
supervisors. Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity was the only
supervisor to oppose the measure.
“I voted against this motion because I didn’t
support the original motion to form the Civilian
Review Panel as we had an Independent Police Auditor, which is where most
significant reviews and recommendations for reforms have come from,” Herrity
said in a statement.
On Sept. 28, the board of supervisors’ public
safety committee is slated to hear a presentation about the review panel along
with recommendations on further reforms in line with the panel’s four-year
review.
Among other changes, the report recommended:
·
Authorizing an
executive director to monitor police investigations of racial bias or profiling
from the onset of an investigation, regardless of whether a complaint has been
filed with the panel
·
Allowing the panel to
conduct its own additional investigations, including interviewing the
complainant and three witnesses
·
Permitting the panel
to conduct a review of a completed police investigation of a complaint about
racial bias or profiling without needing a person to request a review
Limited
in its ability to gather independent information, the civilian review panel has
consistently upheld Fairfax County police investigations into abuse of
authority and misconduct complaints.
The one exception so far came in October 2020 when the panel
determined that the FCPD’s internal review did not thoroughly investigate
allegations of racial bias or profiling in a 2019 incident that involved an
officer following and questioning a driver in Herndon.
Then-Police Chief Edwin Roessler determined
the incident involved poor decision-making but wasn’t motivated by racial bias.
The panel disagreed and referred the issue to the board of supervisors,
which directed the department in January to
take additional action regarding the panel’s request.
“This is part of why the four-year review
requested that the panel mandate be changed from simply asking whether [an] investigation
itself was ‘complete, thorough, accurate, objective, and impartial’ to
determine whether the panel [believed] the conclusion of the investigation is
‘correct,'” Bierman said in a statement.
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