Up for Review

Happier Times: Ayling Wu, first-born daughter Karolyn (now 5), and Kuan Kao.

Law enforcement balks, but social justice advocates say recent spate of police shootings shows need for civilian police review boards

By Citizen Review Boards.

Police Resistance

IN RECENT WEEKS, Kao’s death has fueled a move to create civilian police review boards to scrutinize the actions of local law enforcement agencies.

“It seems like there are more instances [of police brutality],” says Jeff Ott of the Santa Rosa­based Copwatch. “Now is the right time [for independent review of police actions].”

Local members of the American Civil Liberties Union already are laying the groundwork for civilian police review boards. “In my opinion, 90 percent of police officers are doing an excellent job–they’re laying their life on the line for you,” says Rene Lopez of the Rohnert Park­based National Latino Police Officers Association. “But there are a few that we need to control, because those people have got the authority to draw a weapon and kill you.

“We need somebody to oversee them because the police departments are not going to go out and conduct an investigation to find themselves guilty. We need someone else to look into matters.”

Lopez, an ex-state Department of Motor Vehicles investigator and Novato resident, heads the civilian police review board in his hometown, the only such organization in the North Bay. He also is chairman of a local ACLU subcommittee studying the issue.

“If you run a solid police department and do everything by the numbers, why would you object to a police review board?” he asks. “You should be glad to have a police review board take a look at what your department is doing. But if you’re always trying to hide things and something goes awry, then you don’t want people to look at it.”

But the concept is running into stiff resistance locally. Acting Sheriff Jim Piccinini points out that there already are several ways to review police conduct, including internal departmental review and investigations by the District Attorney’s Office, the Sonoma County grand jury, and the state Attorney General’s Office.

“You have to decide if there are sufficient review procedures in place,” Piccinini adds, “or if one more would slow the process.”

Bucking the Trend

THROUGHOUT the United States, there has been a sharp rise in the number of citizen review boards in the last five to 10 years, according to John Crew, director of the Police Practices Project for the ACLU of Northern California. “Of the 50 largest U.S. cities, more than three quarters now have some form of civilian review board. University of Nebraska Professor Sam Walker has documented an enormous growth in suburban- and medium-sized communities creating civilian review boards,” Crew says.

“That growth is occurring at the same time there’s a nationwide trend toward community policing,” he adds. “The police want to work in partnership with the community, but it makes no sense to extend their hand in partnership and then withdraw their hand to take part in an internal affairs system where they police themselves in secret.”

The increasing concern about financial claims filed against police departments and a desire to make sure that cities are not wasting tax dollars on expensive public safety programs is another reason for the growth of civilian review boards.

Additionally, civilian review of law enforcement agencies is better understood now than it was in the ’70s, Crew explains, when it was seen as an anti-cop thing. “Now it’s more about good government than bad cops. Police have unique powers, can directly deprive someone of their freedom, can arrest them, can use excessive force, can even use deadly force. We need some independent method of checks and balances. Even San Diego County–a very conservative area–has recognized this.”

Indeed, the concept has matured and been professional in recent years, he adds, so that it’s become difficult for law enforcement agencies to claim that civilian review is a boogeyman that’s going to destroy law enforcement.

“Sonoma County is a holdout and bucking the trend,” Crew concludes. “Sure, the FBI will investigate the death of Kao. But the FBI operates totally differently than a civilian review board. The FBI will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer is guilty of a crime. That’s really hard to do. The FBI won’t look at issues such as: How did the officer get himself into that position? What mistakes may have been made? Did the officer comply with policy? Should the policy be changed?”

Closed Society

“AS A YOUNG POLICE OFFICER, I had a problem with any kind of interference in the police department,” says John Parker, an ex-Oakland police officer who now heads the San Diego County Citizen’s Law Enforcement Review Board. “My opinion changed as I became more sensitive to what the community needs–more accountability. I saw damage being done by the code of silence employed by many police officers, and I couldn’t abide by it.

“It made me an outcast, just as much as someone who had complained about the police from the outside.”

In San Diego County, the civilian police review board won overwhelming public support as a ballot measure in 1991; the city of San Diego had a review process for several years. Yet, local sheriff’s deputies are still fighting against being brought before the board and having to testify, Parker says.

“Law enforcement is a closed society, they want to police themselves,” he observes. “They want to believe that no one understands policing other than trained law enforcement professionals, but any intelligent adult can read and comprehend written police procedures and rules and regulations, and know or learn what officers are supposed to do in given situations.”

The bottom line, he adds, is that police officers are public employees who work for the citizens, and those citizens have a right to ensure that the police are accountable.

Secrecy and deception are built into the policing system, Rene Lopez says. “If you are a line officer and something goes wrong, you’re not going to snitch yourself out to your superiors,” he points out. “Is the sergeant going to snitch himself out? Is the lieutenant going to say, I knew the sergeant and the line officer were screwing up under my supervision? Hell, no! So the top guy often doesn’t know what’s going on in the ranks because nobody tells him anything. People just aren’t going to come forward to say, I screwed up–fire me. The system is that we hide everything we do wrong, from the line officers right up to the top.

“If you’re the chief of a law enforcement agency and are confident that everybody is doing everything by the numbers, you should welcome an independent review.”

Some form of independent review is needed in a situation like the Kao case to prevent bias among investigators and shore up public confidence in police agencies, says ex-cop Parker. “Police officers will try to support one another and cover for each other. That was my experience as a police officer–some officers will manipulate [the circumstances] and cover [for their peers].”

From the May 29-June 4, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

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© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Square Deal?

Shadow of a Doubt: In the ’40s, Alfred Hitchcock used it as a film location. Now Courthouse Square is becoming a political hot potato.

Not everyone is sold on the Courthouse Square reunification plan

By Paula Harris

BERNIE SCHWARTZ envisions a green haven. A friendly, safe, and accessible downtown park. Maybe something modeled on the homey plazas in Sonoma and Healdsburg, with diagonal footpaths and level terrain, and bustling with such community activities as live performances, art shows, a winter ice rink, and chess games under thin-limbed canopy trees.

“Unless downtown can become an attractive place to seniors and families, we’re never going to revitalize,” Schwartz says. “We want to enrich and enliven downtown so it works for the community and then becomes irresistible as a tourist attraction.”

Right now, according to the 17-year owner of California Luggage on Fourth Street, Courthouse Square is sprawling, difficult to navigate, feels unsafe, and is underused because it’s “isolated, not integrated.”

As part of the Coalition to Restore Courthouse Square, a group pushing to reunify Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square, Schwartz wants to create a recreational gathering place and increase shopping and downtown parking by adding 80 parking spaces.

But the controversial project is generating not only hopes, but fears. Some local merchants think that after investing big bucks in the ’60s to split Courthouse Square, the city should leave well enough alone.

As planned, the $1.9 million project would eliminate the sunken areas, redwood trees, some fountains, and other “visual blockades.” The plan also calls for unifying the east and west halves of the square by closing the one-block cobblestoned segment of Santa Rosa Avenue, between Third and Fourth streets, that bisects the square and links to Mendocino Avenue.

The study was put together for the Coalition to Restore Courthouse Square by local civil engineering firm Carlile, Macy, Mitchell & Heryford. When asked about funding for the study, civil engineer Dick Carlile, who was recently appointed to the Santa Rosa Planning Commission, says the work was done on a “mainly volunteer” basis.

There’s no question how Dave Madigan feels about the project. The message emblazoned in large black letters on the storefront windows at Madigan’s Stationery store at Mendocino and Fifth reads: “Just say no . . . to the reunification of Courthouse Square.”

Father and son owners Tom and Dave Madigan say cost is a big concern. “We’ve just finished paying for the downtown design plan from 1981, the rents are high, and then there’s the cost of earthquake remodeling–they should give us some breathing room,” complains Tom Madigan.

“Essentially half our taxes go to supporting downtown bureaucracies,” says Dave Madigan, who this week sent out letters to the downtown community on behalf of the Downtown Business Association, decrying the project, “and taxes are added into rent.

“Look at the number of empty stores downtown to see a direct result.”

Traffic congestion is another concern, with detractors pointing out that there’s more traffic in Santa Rosa than in Healdsburg or Sonoma. “The [architectural] illustration looks very nice, but the traffic flow will cause the worst bottleneck you ever saw,” claims Tom Madigan.

“Then, the diagonal parking means cars will have to back out into the traffic flow. It’s going to be bedlam.”

Sid Dadeghian, owner of both the Sonoma Coffee Co. and Squeezers on Fourth Street, says the city’s priorities should be building a multistory parking lot in the area and adding foot patrol officers for better security. “The change in the square isn’t going to help anyone. Ninety-nine percent of the businesses are against it, and the only merchants who want it are those who’d benefit directly,” he claims. “This makes no sense. By the time construction is finished, there may not be many businesses left here.”

Pete Mogannam, an owner of the 4th Street Market and Deli at Fourth and Mendocino, says he supports the plan 100 percent, but only “if it stays clean with no loitering, panhandling, and drug dealing, if it portrays a good image for downtown, and doesn’t turn into another Juilliard Park [where loitering, drug dealing, and random violence discourage visitors].”

Schwartz says Courthouse Square has a “dead zone”–empty buildings and tree groves that induce lurking, and costly vandalism that the new design would counteract. “We need to overwhelm this vacuum for undesirable activity with desirable, legitimate activity,” he observes.

Supporters of the reunification see it as a revenue maker that will fill now vacant retail spaces and attract swanky stores like Crate and Barrel and the Z Company. “If you increase the business vitality, you increase the coffers,” says Schwartz.

“I think the whole town would enjoy [the new square], not just the downtown merchants,” says Bonnie Lyon, a downtown psychotherapist. “It’s unfair when the benefit accrued by all Santa Rosa should be a burden on the merchants.”

However, Chris Facas, general manager of the Santa Rosa Plaza mall and chair of the Downtown Partnership Committee, an advisory panel appointed by the council to explore ways to revitalize downtown, says that although the committee embraces the concept of reunification, it’s far from a done deal.

“We’ve requested the City Council to provide us with assistance to see what economic benefits would be gained and assistance developing strategies for financing,” he says. “We have not asked the city to spend $2 million.”

From the May 22-28, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.