Press Statement from the Police Accountability Board Alliance (Sept. 17, 2018)

The Police Accountability Board Alliance made the statement below on September 17, 2018 after reviewing the draft ordinance released by Rochester City Council:

Rochester City Council shared a draft of legislation for a Rochester Police Accountability Board with the Alliance recently. However, City Council’s draft fails to establish the five essential pillars of accountability that the Alliance has been demanding. The five essential pillars for an effective Police Accountability Board are:

    •    An independent agency of city government, separate from RPD
    •    The power to independently investigate complaints of police misconduct
    •    Subpoena power to compel the production of evidence and witnesses
    •    Disciplinary power using a disciplinary matrix
    •    The power to review and assess RPD patterns, practices, policies and procedures to recommend systemic changes in order to prevent future misconduct.

The Alliance has many problems with City Council’s draft legislation. Among the most glaring and obvious is that it significantly curtails the PAB’s independence, investigative power, and disciplinary power.

Specifically:
    1.    Council's draft does not give the PAB real disciplinary power, but rather it leaves final disciplinary power with the Chief of police, thereby maintaining the status quo. This is unacceptable.
    2.    The draft severely weakens the PAB's investigative power and allows the RPD to interview all witnesses prior to the PAB, even if the witness was assaulted by an officer. The draft also prevents the PAB from conducting an investigation and utilizing subpoena power until the Professional Standards Section investigation is concluded.
    3.    The draft does not give the community majority representation on the Board to ensure community control over complaints of misconduct, thus limiting the PAB's real independence. The Council’s draft calls for a 9 member board with 2 appointments from the mayor, 4 appointments from City Council, and 3 appointments from the community. The Alliance calls for an 11 member board with 1 appointment from the mayor, 4 appointments from City Council, and 6 appointments from the community.
    4.    The PAB is severely underfunded which will curtail the board’s ability to effectively and efficiently investigate and adjudicate complaints of police misconduct. Refusing to hire civilian investigators will likely lead to delays in investigations, while the officers in question remain on the force potentially posing a risk to the public.
    5.    Former RPD officers can be appointed on the board, which is likely to cause conflicts of interest and delays in investigations because of recusals, delegitimates the board in the eyes of the community, and could cause the board to become biased toward accused officers instead of reviewing each complaint critically. This inhibits the independence of the board from the RPD.\

The Alliance continues to demand a strong, efficient, and effective Police Accountability Board based on our five pillars. The Alliance will demonstrate and demand that City Council fix these and other problems with their draft legislation at the next City Council meeting, this Tuesday, September 18th, at 6:30 PM at City Hall.

The Alliance Executive Committee will bring these concerns directly to City Council at a meeting scheduled for September 20th.

The Alliance invites all those who support true accountability to attend the City Council meeting tomorrow in order to show that the Rochester community cares about this issue, and that we will not be silenced or thwarted from achieving a Police Accountability Board with substantive powers to hold officers and the department accountable.

Thank you.