By Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The St. Paul City Council changed course Wednesday evening, deciding that police officers should no longer serve as members of the commission that reviews misconduct complaints against the city’s police officers.
The Police-Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission has been in place for more than 20 years and always included two officers and five citizens. The plan now is for the commission to be composed of nine citizens, pending final council approval next Wednesday.
The city council was moving toward keeping officers on the commission, but some were swayed by an outpouring of community members who supported a civilian-only panel.
Wednesday’s council meeting was standing-room-only with people holding signs, such as “Listen to the people.” The St. Paul Police Federation advocated for officers to stay on the panel, and officers attended the meeting wearing federation shirts.
“I want to thank all the community members and leaders for advocating and coming down and making sure that all the council members vote right this time,” said council member Dai Thao, who supported removing officers from the commission from the beginning. "... This is a civilian process that would ensure the transparency and trust of the community. It’s the right thing to do.”
Dave Titus, St. Paul police union president, said he believes the mayor and the majority of council members turned their backs on officers.
“The Police-Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission has served the City with a fair, accountable, and just process for more than 20 years,” Titus said in a statement. "... The decision to throw this away by making change for political reasons represents a complete and tragic disregard for our great officers who put their lives on the line every day. It boggles my mind, that the mayor and council believe the actions of officers should be judged by those less knowledgeable on the policies and procedures with zero input from actual subject-matter experts -- street cops.”
Five council members voted in favor of removing officers from the commission. The two who voted against it were Dan Bostrom and Chris Tolbert.
Bostrom, speaking against the amendment to remove officers, said he thought it was outrageous to do so. He said officers have to make split-second decisions in their work that civilians could never understand.
St. Paul has been discussing changes to the Police-Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission for the last two years. The city commissioned an external audit of the panel. Removing officers from the commission was among the recommendations of the University of Minnesota Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking’s audit.
A major element of the discipline process for officers will be unchanged by the council vote. After the commission makes a recommendation to the police chief about whether an officer should be disciplined for a policy violation, the final decision about discipline falls to the chief, which is a process governed by state law. An officer can appeal the discipline.
John Thompson, Philando Castile’s friend, testifying at St. Paul City Council about the Police-Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission. pic.twitter.com/PyfGp3kRm5
— Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) December 8, 2016
More than 35 people addressed the council Wednesday about the police review commission with most speaking in support of the move to remove officers.
John Thompson, a St. Paul resident and friend of Philando Castile, who was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer last summer, said he has had brutal run-ins with police, but it would have never crossed his mind to report them to a police review board.
“It’s kind of like reporting the police to the police,” Thompson said of the need to remove officers from the commission. “The police have the law on their side, they’ve got everything. Can the civilians have something?”
Several people told the council that officers were a necessary part of the commission.
“Without the patrol point of view, commissioners would be making decisions without vital information,” said St. Paul police officer Ed Dion, who serves on the review panel.
At the city council’s last public hearing on the commission, council members voted down amendments to remove officers or make them non-voting members. But St. Paul residents and at least 18 community organizations have been calling on council members to make it an independent, all-civilian commission.
Community members met with council members Rebecca Noecker and Jane Prince this week.
“I have really wrestled with this issue and I had a really impactful meeting with members of my community on Monday night,” Prince said. She said she heard from the attendees that they wanted officers removed from the commission because “they have a definite sense of a power imbalance in our community.”
Statement from St. Paul police union president Dave Titus on the City Council vote to remove officers from review commission. pic.twitter.com/NpxcWln69Q
— Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) December 8, 2016
But Prince was also troubled that the composition of the commission had become “the line in the sand for both sides of this discussion,” she said. “Because I think the overall reforms of the ordinance go a long way to creating a process that citizens can have confidence in and that police can have confidence in.”
The ordinance change to the commission would make it more independent from the police department by moving it out of the department to the city’s Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity.