Fighting for Justice in the Central Valley

Central California Criminal Justice Committee
Next meeting Wednesday, February 19, 6:00 p.m. Sarah McCardle Room (Downtown library). All interested individuals are welcome to attend.

We will discuss Debbie’’s report and how to get our IPA proposal before the mayor’’s committee.

Aisha Martin-Walton, newly appointed mediator from the Attorney General’’s office, attended our last meeting and told us how she could assist communities through mediation. We asked her to mediate a meeting between us and Chief Dyer because we have not been able to get a
progress report from him on our requests. Within two weeks she arranged a mediation between Chief Dyer, Debbie Reyes, Gloria Hernandez, and Ellie Bluestein. We will discuss the results at this meeting and bring a copy of the new complaint forms that are being printed as well as the
answers to our other requests.

New endorsers: Los Barrios Unidos, Interfaith Alliance, Black Chamber of
Commerce.

questions/concerns or opinions regarding this report call 559-485-7884
Submitted by Deb Reyes,
Human Relations Commission Vice-Chair and CCCJC liaison member
Meeting #2, Jan. 23, 2003
Agenda :Presentation from Office of Police Accountability Office
Sacramento IPA, Don Casmeir,
Approximately 5 city Representatives
Internal Affairs
Police Union
City Attorney’’s office
Deputy City Manager
Chief of Police
5 Local Leaders:
Keith Kelly
Joel Murillo, Independent Attorney
Myself
Gail Gaston
H. Speace
Paula Fargo
Darnell

Introduction
Don is an Ex Police Officer from Berkeley, he helped organize San Francisco, Richmond and is the current Appointed Sacramento Police Auditor

Things he talked about:

* Has helped with 3 types of oversight: Auditor / Monitor / Review Board.* Immediate Areas of focus were citizen complaint and vehicle pursuit
* He worked on Citizen complaint accessibility : online, in writing, walk in, over phone
* He answers directly to city manager
* Autonomous access
* meets regularly with police union/city council
* handles major incidents press conferences
* IPA findings are not committed to writing
* All Independent Investigations are authorized by City Manager
* City Charter dictates authorization
* His Final Findings become public
* He is an advocate for the process
* He recommends that Law enforcement background is helpful to understand officers jobs
* He discussed some details and examples of high visibility cases pertaining to how and why oversight systems were brought in
* Gave his perspective from a law enforcement point of view giving very little recognition to community outpouring over these cases or mention types of community support to these police accountability systems

Committee participation:

*First off before meeting started Internal Affairs person reiterated a hint about $500,000 being available to campaign against this process. After the first meeting I left that out of my report because I figured it was just a dig about his unhappiness on this issue. But twice is enough to include comments like these into my report to CCCJC members and supporters. We would all not have to be there, but lawsuits placed against the City of Fresno about police abuse and lives lost due to possible misconduct/ lack of sensitivity training/ policy or All of the above dictate that we all must sit at the table and hammer out a proposal for Fresno and take this very seriously.

*City officials representing law enforcement asked questions regarding confidentiality, Professional Standards and Peace Officers’’ Bill of Rights, Subpoena Power of IPA

*I asked about community outreach. He said his office is open to all and it sounded like he doesn't really get involved too much in that area. except when he is called upon.

Overall my take on the presentation was that he was pro law enforcement support yet talked about the civilian models he helped format as if it were a basic pain in the ass for law enforcement. He referred jokingly to his "buddies" with Richmond P.D. Being happy he was leaving. But he added since those cities "had to do it" (Employ a Police auditor system) why not have it be someone like his self who has a law enforcement background and understands what police officers are going through on the streets. He recommended the same type of individual for Fresno, except not someone from our own P.D. He mentioned that 30% of auditors out there are Ex police officers.