Richmond City Council members heard a competing set of recommendations on how they could form a new civilian body to oversee police from a professor Monday. Will Pelfrey summarized a report commissioned just weeks after a task force recommended a large and powerful Civilian Review Board last fall.
Since a new law went into effect last July, localities around the Commonwealth are able to form such bodies, but how and which powers and how they are formed vary.
Will Pelfrey is a professor with Virginia Commonwealth University, and said he has worked with many local agencies, including Richmond’s Task Force on Reimagining Public Safety. He made several recommendations for a CRB in his report, including that it should have between seven and eleven members appointed by the mayor, city council, and police chief, and that subpoenas for board investigations should require a majority vote. While law enforcement is barred from membership in such bodies, Pelfrey recommended a role for a police officer.
“That would be a non-voting member of the Civilian Review Board,” he told council members. “That liaison would be an active-duty Richmond police department investigator who can answer questions, supply information, and represent the agency.”
His report argued against many recommendations made by a group of Richmond residents chosen by the city council for a taskforce. For example, Pelfrey disagreed with the task force's suggestion that the oversight body could issue police budget recommendations, saying such powers were “inappropriate and unrealistic.”
That task force worked for months gathering public input and research on how the city could have an independent oversight body commonly known as a Civilian Review Board. In August they presented their report. It envisioned a very independent and powerful police oversight body. A few weeks later, the city asked Pelfrey to write his report, raising questions whether policy makers wanted to implement those recommendations.
“The administration coming in after us and saying, ‘Hey, we're going to hire one individual to produce a report,’ and that individual never even engaged with members of the task force.” said Eli Coston one of the task force’s co-chairs. “That's not a transparent process.”
Pelfrey also challenged whether a new CRB should be able to look into all types of complaints against police officers.
“Reviewing the past five years of annual reports indicates that, on average, approximately 70% of the complaints are noted by RPD as allegations of serious misconduct,” he wrote. “RPD reports state that 5- 10% of all complaints suggest possible criminal activity.”
These complaints are alleged, not confirmed, misconduct, and most were internal complains, which can include personnel matters such as tardiness for duty or consistent errors in reporting during the course of work, but also "improper firearm discharge or suspected criminal activity."
Coston said that in the task force’s work surveying community members they found that many complaints don’t make it to police.
“What we heard repeatedly though, is that things are not fine and that community members don't have any faith in that process,” they said. “That is one of the primary reasons why we proposed having an external office where these complaints would be taken in and handled.”
Pelfrey didn't indicate that his methodology included conversations or input with community members.
Civilian Review Boards exist in other parts of Virginia, like Charlottesville and Virginia Beach. It wasn’t until July of last year that any locality could establish one.
In Arlington an effort to allow the County Board to hire an independent policing auditor was vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin despite a significant amount of Republican support for the bill.
“The Governor’s veto will not do anything related to disciplinary powers of the policing oversight body,” said Delegate Patrick Hope in an emailed statement. “That authority rests solely in the ordinance and has nothing to do with this position…To say that I’m disappointed the Governor would use his veto pen on a Charter bill to make a misguided political statement is an understatement.”
Youngkin’s veto statement said law enforcement operates best without outside oversight.
“The best way to ensure that any bad actors within law enforcement are held accountable is to stand up for law enforcement, not tear them down or subject them to politically-motivated inquiries,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin’s veto statement expressed his stance on the utility of police oversight, and ran against the recommendations in both reports submitted to Richmond City Council.
“The whole purpose of a Civilian Review Board revolves around trust and accountability. A police department is more effective if they have the trust of the citizenry,” Pelfrey told the city council. “They'll secure information. They'll collect intelligence, they'll get participation from the community which enhances their effectiveness and their efficiency.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.