I attended the PRS committee meeting Tues and the full council today. I believe that they are the investigations are possibly going to the civil rights department, until they make a new board. The current Civilian Review Authority will expire April 30th but they are telling people who call in complaints to call their CMs. They are going to revamp or create a new oversight board of some sort. Dean Zimmerman and Paul Zerby are pushing the subpoena power hard. I applaud them. The main argument against Paul's proposal seems to be it's putting the horse before the carriage. (they have some sort of advisory board to make the new one- call your CM for details) Another argument is what is the legality of giving subpoena power. Hopefully these are true concerns and not a way of rendering it ineffective as before. To me it is like a beater car. How much do you want to put into it? It's time to junk it and get a fully loaded car. Zerby's proposal is a good one for two reasons. First granting subpoena power would send a strong signal to the dissatisfied and the disenfranchised that this council is serious and is not going to repeat the mistakes of the past. Also it would make subpoena power a strong foundation to build the new board on. The new manifestation needs to avoid being stacked with pro-police members. It really even needs to avoid the appearance of being pro-police. The perception of the old CRA alone made it ineffective. Also it should have at least some say in (If not decide) the penalties. Of the small number of cases the current CRA sustained the Chief of Police often gave letters of reprimand and sometimes nothing. A few days suspension was a serious penalty. Even from the police point of view, being held accountable is a good thing. Maybe it would restore some people's faith in the police, only making their job easier. My concern now is what happens is the gap until a new entity is created? Obviously we should encourage Zerby And Zimmerman, as well as offer our suggestions. But if the current board has already stopped taking cases- what do victims do? Many cases at least appear to involve civil rights (Patricia Hughes on the current CRA said 70% of their cases involve minorities) the FBI will probably do a better job than the CRA ever did. I try them first and if they can't help call the City Clerk. Let's see this through so we don't have to do it again it ten years, Brian Monroe proud to be in ward 6 Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com |
