Timeliness of investigations/reviews:

€The change from IID to IAD seems to have brought a renewed commitment to close out cases in 90 days' time, although a second change in leadership at IAD has caused some delays. POPSG's original Proposal would have independent investigators taking the case and closing it out in 4 months' time. The difference, of course, would be that PIIAC would hear the cases up front rather than waiting for a civilian to appeal an IAD decision to them.

Other changes:

€The old flowchart in our Proposal shows a complex network of complaints changing hands before citizens see results. This has been streamlined somewhat by the Mayor's Initiative in that PIIAC advisors can now 1) send cases back to IAD directly, and 2) have the option of sending the case to the Bureau's Review Level Committee, the management-level group which deals with controversial cases and recommends discipline to the Chief. (See new flowchart)

POPSG still believes that this could be further streamlined by expanding PIIAC staff so that they could intake and investigate the complaints directly.

€The issue of Risk Management cases (lawsuits against the city) is in the process of being worked out. PIIAC advisors have asked for basic information on Risk Management cases to find trends and determine whether some officers who receive multiple complaints also are the subjects of the lawsuits, or perhaps have multiple lawsuits filed against them but are never brought to the attention of Internal Affairs. Currently, filed claims and even completed cases in which officers are found to have acted wrongfully do not necessarily end up in personnel files or initiate Command Review. Policy issues could also be addressed by examining Risk Management information.

€Police commanders have, as part of the Initiative, come to PIIAC meetings from time to time to explain policy and procedure matters. However, the officers accused of misconduct are not requested or advised to come to hearings.

€PIIAC has received a seat on the Chief's Forum. However, structure of these meetings makes it difficult to raise issues of accountability or even content of monitoring reports. Since this is the Chief's advisory committee made up of a hand-picked group of citizens, it seems important to address these issues along with community concerns and police program updates.

€PIIAC has made some effort to reach out into the community, holding 3 or 4 meetings in community locations rather than downtown. However, due to lack of high-profile publicity, not all of them were very well attended.

Summary:

At the time of the writing of this update, four cases appealed to PIIAC and then returned to IAD have been sustained. That is to say, misconduct of one kind or another has been found and/or the nature of the finding has been changed despite the Bureau's original conclusions.

However, the overall mission of PIIAC in the era of community policing remains unresolved: a way to build trust in individuals and communities of people who have been mistreated by police which is fair, open, and works to prevent problems in the future.

    Dan Handelman
    POPSG/Portland Copwatch
    March, 1996

About the Spring 1996 edition of this Proposal:

This Update has been attached to the Winter 1993 edition of POPSG's Proposal for An Effective Civilian Review Board. None of the text in the body of the Proposal has changed. In the second edition, we attached several articles from 1992-93 regarding police actions. We have left them off here as they are slightly out of date, but if you want a copy of them feel free to contact us.

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