This bill might have given Greensboro officials the ability to legally address the questions raised by the students and pastors concerned about an alleged "subculture of corruption" in the GPD, at least where it concerns citizens such as Wesley Williams who have filed complaints against officers.
Unfortunately for those who favor more transparency and giving the complaint review committee more teeth to do its job of investigating allegations of police misconduct, the bill is going nowhere, and at least one Greensboro City Council member is up in arms against its sponsor, Rep. Pricey Harrison.
Harrison writes in an e-mail from earlier today: "I will not be filing the bill because it lacks the needed support of city council or the delegation (one must have unanimity in the short session for local bills). It never dawned on me that this city council would withdraw its support for the legislation that the previous council approved. I missed the delegation/city council meeting on April 29 due to an important committee meeting in Raleigh (I have been unfairly crticized for missing that meeting). In hindsight I should have checked with someone in city council office before distributing the language to my colleagues for approval to ensure this was something the city was still interested in. Lesson learned."
Harrison said Wayne Abraham, the former chair of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission, sent her the language for the bill last August, and then reminded her about it at the Take It to Raleigh meeting later in the evening after the council and legislative delegation had met to discuss the council's legislative agenda.
The previous city council voted 8-1 last August to request legislative action in Raleigh to allow the complaint review committee to obtain information from the police department about what disciplinary actions had been taken against officers subject to complaints made by citizens. That information is normally protected by the state's personnel privacy law; hence the need for legislative action in Raleigh. District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny was the lone dissenter in that decision.
The vote took place in open session, and received at least a passing glance in the media, as evidenced by an Aug. 5 Scuttlebutt item in YES! Weekly.
Then, on March 23, during a briefing the new city council agreed by consensus to remove the request from its legislative agenda. Briefings are publicly advertised, and are usually attended by one to three reporters. I, for one, failed to attend this particular briefing and, from what I can tell, the decision went unreported.
As an explanation for the council's reversal, at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins told me: "The reason is because we were told in the hearing that the police department was 100 percent behind it, and it was not. That was some misinformation that the council got. As soon as the city council found out that the chief was not behind it and the police department was not, we backed off.”
That's an odd explanation.
Minutes from the Aug. 3, 2009 meeting reflect that Chief Tim Bellamy addressed the council, telling members that he agreed with the proposal except for one provision that allowed the complaint review committee to review the pattern and history of complaints against a particular officer before rendering a decision. The offending provision was struck from the final resolution.
Before the vote, Bellamy told the council that he supported the initiative.
"It's going to build more trust in the community," he said, "and more trust within the department."
UPDATE: Local bloggers Sam Hieb and Joe Guarino ask how language ended up in Harrison’s bill allowing access to police personnel files if the city council approved a resolution that removed a provision to allow such access.
The answer is found in the minutes, which note that Bellamy expressed objection to a provision stating that “the CRC will have access to information regarding officers’ record of complaints once a determination is made by the CRC.” The key word here is record.
Councilman Perkins made a motion to remove this provision, and it was taken out.
Hieb asks, “If the council removed the personnel files, and the commission withdrew subpoena power, then exactly which recommendations did need legislative approval? And how did it turn out — as Guarino reports — that Harrison’s bill included access to police personnel files?”
In fact, the city council did not “remove personnel files” in its August 2009 resolution. The complaint review committee model approved by council includes a provision under the heading “Local Ordinance and Legislative Action”: “CRC will be informed directly by the police department about what specific disciplinary measures are taken regarding officers who have been found to have violated the law or policy in cases it reviews.”
There’s a difference: The provision taken out alludes to a history of complaints attached to a particular officer; the provision that survived the August 2009 vote refers to the disciplinary outcome of individual cases reviewed by the complaint review committee.
5 comments:
How did Abraham remind Harrison of something at a meeting she did not attend?
If I understand your question correctly, Harrison did not attend the 4 p.m. meeting between city council and the legislative delegation on April 29. This meeting was set up specifically to discuss the city's legislative agenda. Harrison did attend the Take It Back to Raleigh meeting at the same location and on the same date, that took place immediately after the council-legislative meeting. The second meeting is the in which Abraham reminded Harrison about the bill.
Ah. OK. I did not realize there were two meetings that day. Thanks.
Neither Hieb nor Guarino have updated their posts...
No, they haven't.
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