BART to Choose Civilian Oversight -- Speak Out Now!

The BART police oversight subcommittee will likely present three options for police oversight and vote on which proposal to move forward with at their next meeting. One will be their original weak plan presented on May 15th, whereby oversight is primarily conducted by an Independent Auditor who has no power to recommend discipline and a Citizen's Advisory Committee that has no power whatsoever. Another is likely to be a true civilian oversight plan, whereby a citizen board can recommend discipline and where the BART Board of Directors can hear appeals of citizen complaints. The third will probably be some phony "compromise" version that kowtows to the BPD police unions while citizen involvement is muted.

The best chance the community has of assuring that there are no more murders of Jerrold Halls, Bruce Edward Sewards, or Oscar Grants is to push the subcommittee and BART Board Directors to choose a model that allows for true civilian oversight, including access to all relevant information and the ability to recommend discipline for offending BPD officers. It is also important that appeals related to complaints can rise to the BART Board rather than ending with the police chief and the general manager, both of whom the public has no faith in now.

Make your voice heard at the subcommittee meeting on Monday, June 8, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. in the BART Board Room at 344 20th St., third floor, Oakland, CA. Once the subcommittee selects a model, it will be far more difficult for the public to push for better models.


For more info on the BART civilian oversight process thus far, see:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/06/18600758.php