Cop-Proof Citizen Review Board Part 5

Seeking Members

Requirements for a Citizen Review Board member as covered here are---

• Be a resident of a few years, and of voting age
• Know the city, streets, neighborhoods, businesses, etc
• Understand the current PD is not what we originally created
• Know that cops will be what you let them be, good or bad
• Demand the PD you want, not the one you are given
• Bring varietal backgrounds and concerns to the table
• Be prepared to hire, fire, and get your hands dirty
• Do it for free

The successful and necessary Citizen Review Board is one that sculpts a police department according to what the people of the city both want and expect in return for their tax money. Any citizen oversight panel is not an attempt to please the police union or even the PD itself. The following guidelines are meant to help review board members define and execute their own plan in the name of the townspeople. A police department that shares their views on what a cop should be, their city’s needs, and how the PD can deliver those needs, is the only acceptable end result. And remember the mantra: “Do it for free”.

Residency, Record and Relationship
Members must be residents of the town they serve and dedicated to the law enforcement needs of their town. Members must be of voting age and residents of their city long enough to know the general layout of the streets, neighborhoods, business districts, residential areas, roads, bridges and back alleys. Basically, a visual understanding of the differing parts of town.

Members cannot have a personal axe to grind with the police department. No arrest record, no trouble involving police encounters with themselves or family. Also, there cannot be any employment on the part of members or family in any local, state or federal law enforcement agencies. That keeps us all on the same page. The honesty we expect is the honesty we exhibit. No agendas brought, no agendas tolerated.

Dedication
Members must accurately understand the depth of authority they are giving police, and the potential of that authority when abused. Members understand that if cops abuse anybody, they will abuse everybody but their own. This realization is what clarifies and necessitates the oversight control a Civilian Review Board represents.

Members need not care about money paid to them for their service, because they won’t get any. Expecting a paycheck is the biggest roadblock to success any review board will ever encounter, and getting a paycheck is the weakest link in the review board’s chain of strength. Police union opposition to any oversight will always quote the payroll when the budget is short, and compare it to the other needs facing the city. It is an old and frequently used trick. However, when the oversight payroll is $0, there is no argument.

Members, come to the meetings! The best organized citizen effort will fail if they do not have the backing of the public, and the best way to have the public turn on a board is if they never meet, or worse, if there is a meeting and no members show up. When a member becomes an active voice in the CRB, show up and use it. Find members that will meet once or twice a week. If your PD is not to your liking, there will be plenty of things to do and subjects to discuss twice a week, believe me.

Members must stay in touch with each other. All members must have access to a computer with a dedicated email box for citizen review business and internet connection. A phone would be good, too.

Diversification
A collection of citizens from a variety of professions, incomes and ages will best serve the community. Opposition to this viewpoint will claim cops have a unique and specialized ownership of the knowledge in police work that others could never understand. Not so. Police are intended to be whatever we the people want them to be. A cop who claims any superiority to the citizen is not cop material. He doesn’t get the job description.

Any citizen who believes their portion of the community is not represented should provide representation with their personal input. All members need to invite as many citizens as qualify to meetings. Advertise your meetings and results in local free papers.

Have The Stomach For It
There is always a downside to things and a Citizen Review Board will be no different.
Be prepared. The personality types that need to be retrained after a lifetime of misdirection will not be easy to work with. The public who wants a CRB does so because their PDs have terribly and violently betrayed them, and that PD will not go quietly. Strength in your mind and soul will be challenged, because assumed authority hates to be challenged. Within their power lies their fatal flaw, however. Be ready to exploit that flaw. Prepare to ask tough questions and demand complete, honest answers from beat cops as well as the Chief. Prepare to suspend or fire if only a small doubt remains. Prepare for the worst, because at first, it will be the worst. The police department is currently a mess, one that is many years deep, and the initial cleanup won’t be pretty.

These guidelines will get members to the table, in a seat, and their minds on the same page. Next comes individual training.

Mayor Sarno Wants Citizen Complaint Board To Fail

Story--

A Great Way To Insure Failure

Chairman H. Edgar Alejandro, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, what are you doing? The complaint Review Board in Springfield MA is a joke. A board with no power is a board with no purpose.

As Journalist Peter Goonan of Masslive.com said:

“The meeting was called to solicit public comment on how to improve board operations and to receive additional recommendations to be submitted to the mayor.

The board reviews citizen complaints of excessive force and decisions of the Police Department’s internal investigations unit on those complaints. But suspension, firing and other disciplinary decisions lie with Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet.”

This is no way to get a message through to a group of people who’s only purpose in knowing you is to ignore you. Cops have a serious listening disorder when it comes to citizens, and our patience will never cure it. So much for “submitting recommendations”.

Mayor Sarno, you must empower the review board with the ability to actually make decisions, not just advise and suggest. Without that empowerment, their results will be minimal, support from the citizens, the life-blood of any oversight panel, will be luke-warm at best, and respect for the board amongst police will be non-existent. Continuing on that path is a waste of money and office-endowed authority.

Citizens need to be encouraged to take part in a process that will give them the police department they want, and creating an oversight panel that can do nothing to improve the PD is the perfect opposite. Worse yet, every cop in every city or town knows that. They must be brought into line with civilian authority. Mayor Sarno, make THAT happen, and Chairman Alejandro, gather public support and leverage it with the Mayor to get some teeth.

Bulletin: Police Are Also Lawmakers

Read The Story

OK, some cops have bigger and more metallic ones than others. But this is insane. The Bloomington IL police department has notified citizens that there will be another “no refusal weekend” somewhere between now and New Year’s weekend, but they coyly refuse to say exactly when.

“No Refusal” means that if you refuse a breathalyzer test at a sobriety checkpoint or anywhere else, you will be subjected to a roadside blood withdrawal for lab analysis to determine contents. These blood tests can reveal all kinds of things that have nothing to do with DUI, and would both enrage and encourage defense lawyers. Oddly, there is a judge involved here who is willing to crank out search warrants as fast as he can sign them to expedite this destruction of the 4th Amendment. How many “rights”, are we willing to allow cops to invent before we put the brakes on?

Yes, the Bloomington PD squawks over and over that they just want to get people to their destinations safely, implying they mean no harm, but anybody with an ounce of intelligence can figure this out. Bloomington police believe, they really do believe, they can say and do anything they want. There is virtually no law to back up their belief, and nothing in state law to let them “no-refuse” citizens. Sure, Bloomington had great success with it back on July 4th weekend, but it was just as wrong then as it is now, successful or not.

How loudly and from what distance from the ear does the title “Citizen Review Board” have to be shouted? This is a great lesson for citizens to learn from: Cops tried it once on July 4th and nobody slapped them down for it, so now, here it comes again, but ratcheted up a bit. It will come back again, and again, you can be sure. Each time it does, it will be more insidious, stronger, and virulent.

Folks, this systematic creeping-in of assumed authority and righteousness is a method also used by termites, roaches and crabgrass. See it for what it is! Stand up to the Cop Culture thinking and Academy teaching, and start demanding a police department in Bloomington that represents the citizen.

Police Drop Charges, Citizen Oversight Keeps Track

It Is What We Need To Do

Police utilize bogus charges as a weapon to justify their further law-breaking actions against a citizen, and intimidate a defendant leading up to court. Their favorite is disorderly conduct, but they have some others that vary from day to day, in whatever language strikes them as authoritative at the time, but all of which mean the same thing: “You are guilty of impeding the progress of the Almighty Me doing whatever the hell I want, be it right or not understandable by you.” Bogus charges such as these are just another lie from cop to citizen, the procedural equivalent of beating a citizen on the head with a flashlight, then charging him with breaking it.

It is also used to bargain a charge to conviction by offering to drop the garbage assertions in return for a guilty plea to something, but never to expedite justice. Instead, it allows the cop who filed the charge to walk out of court a “winner”. We know the Academy pounds into naïve recruit’s heads, with juvenile audacity, the ridiculous oxymoron, “always win”, but at what point does a mentally healthy human understand that nobody always wins? Age 5? 6? Earlier?

Another Problem A Citizen Review Board Can Fix

A civilian oversight mechanism is desperately needed in these cases, not to instruct cops on maturity, ( you can’t take the “id” out of idiot), but to slowly collect the right cops for the force who get the picture. In the event of bogus charges, let whatever happens in court happen, but the review board must keep the records and

apply a judgment to cop’s behavior: how many charges are filed, and how many of them are dismissed in court? Easy to understand, with no knowledge of “intricate police work” needed, just a simple scorecard. If the cop makes the charge, he will be, (Caution----dirty word coming!), RESPONSIBLE for his actions.

No proof? Worse yet, the charge is based on personal opinion? Cop pays a fine. He will say what he means and mean what he says or get legally smacked for it. Isn’t that the rules for the citizen? Remember, it is all about equality. It is a simple enough lesson for the average cop possessing the average cop IQ of 104 to understand, without a law degree. On the citizen’s side, it does require a populace who doesn’t want to be manipulated, or unduly burdened with the strain of getting a lawyer to explain away the spurious elements of charges that have no merit.

False Arrest.

We all know the term. Unfortunately it is difficult to use it as a defense against being overcharged. The misbehavior of the cop would have to be so brainlessly egregious, that a judge would risk his own reputation by ruling against the citizen, in the event of an arrest without cause. But-----if a cop can do or say anything to provoke a response that he can call unresponsive, uncooperative, disrespectful or just plain personally off-pissing, he immediately lumps it into interfering with the duty of a officer, and makes an arrest.

These things are ALL false arrests, both in effectiveness and intent as their dismissal rate shows, yet every court lets the charges pass through the system disallowed, and cost taxpayers more and more money for facilities and personnel devoted to it. Meanwhile, the cops that flippantly apply these costly charges just walk away, feeling no loss to themselves and oftentimes, justified.

Where Is The Resolve?

So, where does the citizen review fit in here? First, the CRB needs complete and full access to all police records to determine which cop charges which arrestees with what, followed with the success rates of those charges in court. A cop who is too anxious to make a charge without proof can be instructed to review and familiarize himself with the appropriate charge for the facts he can prove, but no more. Cops don’t think in those terms because they’ve been told they are always right from the Academy.

Cops use intentional overcharging as an intimidation device to get into court and then a bargaining tool to get back out, a lesson taught to green cops by gray cops. None of this engenders trust and appreciation for the police departments of any city, and is counterproductive if either side wants success.

Let’s call a dismissed charge what it is----a lie. And let’s decide if lying is a crime or not. If so, every lie a cop tells needs to result in a heavy fine, but if not, lying to a cop should never get to court. Cops are famous for playing both sides of the fence, but it is time for that to come to a stop, in the name of equality. Vote accordingly.

Police Do Nothing Wrong, Ever...

Long ago, in an episode of 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney started his weekly piece with the question, “Have you noticed that nobody has done anything wrong in the last 20 years?” Andy had it right. Cops got out of the wrongdoing business a long time ago. And we let them. Now police departments from coast to coast believe they are entitled to this umbrella of exemption, but only for themselves. Whatever they say or do is righteous, no matter how many laws are brazenly ignored. Cop culture causes this and it must be brought into submission with some citizen control. Their simple minds have been warped by their upbringing and subsequent training.

Are you as sick of this as I am? Cops cause millions in cash to be taken out of taxpayer’s pockets for settlements, but nothing wrong happened. So let me get this straight---

1) I hire Cop and pay his salary with my tax money.

2) Cop abuses me and breaks law after law after law.

3) Cop is found guilty of crimes against me and I am paid restitution with more of my own tax money.

4) Cop claims he did nothing wrong and walks away.

5) Cop does the same thing tomorrow.

Is that about it?

Is there a newly added level of culpability in the law? First, you’ve got your guilty, then your not guilty, (not to be mixed up with innocent), and now this no wrongdoing thing. I get the first two, but that third one is beyond any reason-based concept of justice and honesty. They did it, but they didn’t? Do anything, be responsible for nothing. What a haven for mental misfits.

One cop said he can hear when a car is speeding, and based on that alone, he issues the ticket.

See what I mean? This guy, Ken Roth, didn’t care about anything but his own superior judgement, which couldn’t be wrong, because there is never cop wro…..well, you get it. BTW, after appeals, the citizen finally won his case.

What bothers me most about this cop is not that he thought so highly of himself that he believes he possesses super hearing, but that he had the nerve to bring his fantasy to court and trot it out as fact. Cop Culture strikes another citizen, another court, another taxpayer. Fortunately in the above case, the citizen prevailed, but the collateral damage in taxpayer time and money was done, and the cop shrugged it off and went back to work the next day, in the face of the court’s ruling that the speeding ticket case was a “manifest miscarriage of justice”.

When it comes to the “no wrong-doing” theory, cops succeed even when sentenced. Cops are always given more preference than citizens. They are found guilty less often, (33% cops, to 68% citizens), and when found guilty, are given lesser sentences which do not include jail, (64% cops to 72% citizens), and when imprisoned, are let out earlier than citizens (6 months cops to 37 months citizens, average). Thanks to Packratt for the stats.

So, when they are found guilty and actually sentenced, they are still not AS guilty of any wrongdoing, even when they do the same things as citizens. Is this a screaming, steaming pile of inequality or what? It all adds up to Cop Culture again. People who can’t cut it as an equal to the citizen, flock to the police academy for solace and are taken in with open arms. They are trained, (aka brainwashed), given deadly weapons and a license to kill, and sent out to believe they are always right.

Folks, we could dismantle and rebuild the police academy, but that would be an absurdly difficult and long-range task to say the least. But best of all, we don’t need it. All it takes is a civilian oversight board, one that can hire and fire. Under the influence of the citizen’s review, police departments, as well as the police academy will slowly but surely comply with the wishes of the people. They will really have no choice, because the people will demand what they want, and cops who do not conform will find themselves working elsewhere. This is the sculpting of the PD that a truly independent citizen review will provide. Consider that, Portland and Antioch.

Police have to get over their planted, knee-jerk fear of citizens, and currently running review boards have to get over their feelings of inadequacy and come of age. Neither are working toward a profitable goal yet, and I want to see them on the same page.

Do-Nothing Citizen Review Panels

Have you noticed Citizen Review Boards currently in operation all doing the same old things? They “look into”, they “investigate”, they “consider and discuss”, and if they get really brave, they “recommend”. Then, the police chief and /or Internal Affairs, totally ignores everything they say. Next day it is business as usual for the department and the cops who beat, shoot and electrocute citizens. What good is this? Are these review boards really doing what the citizens they serve need, or are they just an unwitting arm of the police department? Again and again, they roll over for the PD or their union.

This habit will only starve citizens to death, both of rights and the tax money to support the review board. (See previous posts about needing a tax-free CRB). What threats do police departments use to prevent real strength from developing in a citizen-based authority?

It is the paycheck. Too many board members get paid for their work on the panel. They begin to rely on that check for their private lives, the very private life that is being jeopardized by errant cops every day.

Cops work the game on the coming and the going. “Tax money is short, we can’t afford to pay the review board”, and “If you mess with the PD, the union will lobby to cut off your funding”. There is only one way to break free from the circus cops have created, and it is an all-volunteer panel, with no ties to anybody but the citizenry they serve.

With Patrick Hunter of San Diego being cut out of the city budget recently and Paul Kennedy of Canada

meeting the same fate, money is proving to be the most effective weapon police have against the citizen review board. This, while police departments nationwide are settling out of court for their own misbehavior costing huge sums of our tax money.

We must begin police control that cannot be manipulated by availability of funds. We must mobilize our citizens to take charge of an ever-growing problem of police stealing our money, our physical well-being and our freedom.

Get to know your local government as well as incoming politicians who are eyeing the next election, and make it clear that citizen authority over the local police department is the only way to get cops and citizens on the same page, and the only way for a candidate to get a vote. There is no other way, because cops won’t listen to us. Speaking up to a cop is “disorderly conduct” or “interfering with police”, two of their most used but bogus charges. Name another job where anyone could get paid for arrogance like that. Remember, we created cops, and we pay them. They need to start acting like they understand that fact.