If you're going to have a Civilian Review Board (and every place should), it
must be far more independent of the police than the ones now in place in
almost every city that has one.
Absolutely essential: No cops on the board. Cops have already had their go
at the complaint by Internal Affairs, which denies 99% of them.
Rulings of the board to sustain a complaint are not reviewable by the chief
or any other cop. The officer(s) under scrutiny may appeal, of course, but
the only official allowed to overrule a Board vote is the Mayor.
----------
The Police are the only major public service agency allowed to investigate
and rule on their own alleged misbehavior. Inspectors general and other
outside investigative mechanisms are in place for everyone else.
Interestingly, the knee-jerk response to citizen complaints by this and
every other chief is always that the violence was righteous. No questions,
officers are always right right off the bat. Never mind when the eyewitness
evidence is overwhelmingly the opposite. No wonder the trust level is rock
bottom. This is the shame of the otherwise wonderful City of Minneapolis:
its police department. Its long-standing reputation for politics, corruption
and uncorrected violence goes back decades, perhaps a century, who knows? I
was proposing to do an investigative documentary on the Minneapolis Police
as far back as 1979 for Channel 2. I wasn't allowed to pursue it. They were
ripe for it then. They're ripe for it now.
Yesterday's shooting is no isolated incident. Anyone not willing to admit
that is in a serious state of denial. It's part of a pattern of
institutional violence in this and many other police departments everywhere
else in this country.
I won't even start in on my many eyewitness accounts of inappropriate police
behavior - on and off duty - during the ten years I spent in Detroit. The
racism in police forces is epidemic and entrenched. And the communities of
color in every city and town in the USA know the kind of fear we whites will
never know: they really *are* out to get us - every day in every way.
Walking on eggshells around your own neighborhood or city is no way to live,
but black folks and brown folks and other powerless people experience that
fear every time they set foot outdoors. And sometimes not even then.
It comes to them.
When will our elected leadership brace themselves and screw up the courage
to really overhaul the police culture? Can it be?
I wish I knew.
Andy Driscoll
Saint Paul
------
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied
corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of
strength, and bid defiance to the laws of the country."
--- Thomas Jefferson,1816
> From: "sue" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 20:40:47 -0600
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [Mpls] re: police shooting
>
> too bad the powers that be decided in their infinite wisdom to get rid
> of the civilian review board. yet those on the council want to have
> better relations between civilians and police. sadly, this recent
> shooting (was it necessary to shoot at this unarmed man repeatedly until
> he was killed?) does nothing to ease the tension between community and
> police.
>
> sue ahachich
> ward 3
>
> _______________________________________
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