Phoenix looks to be next big city with citizen police review

FILE - In this June 18, 2019 file photo a Phoenix resident stands up to wave his cowboy hat in support of a speaker at a community meeting in Phoenix. Still stinging from national outrage sparked this summer by a videotaped encounter of officers pointing guns and cursing at a black family, community members are holding low-key meetings aimed at helping Phoenix officials figure out how citizens could help oversee the city's officers. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
FILE - In this June 18, 2019 file photo a Phoenix resident stands up to wave his cowboy hat in support of a speaker at a community meeting in Phoenix. Still stinging from national outrage sparked this summer by a videotaped encounter of officers pointing guns and cursing at a black family, community members are holding low-key meetings aimed at helping Phoenix officials figure out how citizens could help oversee the city's officers. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — Dozens of people, mostly African Americans, huddled around tables scattered across a church gymnasium on a recent evening, discussing past run-ins with Phoenix police officers and ways to hold them accountable.

In a city still stinging from a video of officers pointing guns and cursing at a black family this summer, the confidential talks intended to give officials in the country’s fifth-largest city ideas on how residents could help oversee the police.

“I want to see, hear, feel and touch what you are coming up with so we can make real change,” said Police Chief Jeri Williams, wearing a casual civilian shirt and slacks to the gathering at the church. “I understand we have some real internal work to do.”

Phoenix is among the last big U.S. cities without independent civilian oversight of police, said Samuel Walker, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Phoenix’s powerful police union has blocked past efforts to establish such a board and is resisting the new push.

Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Denver and Portland, Oregon, are among many cities with some kind of civilian oversight, with more joining following high-profile police killings of black men and others in recent years.

Police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, released video this week showing officers fatally shooting a black man as he ran away.

Williams, who’s a black woman, and other Phoenix officials are moving toward adopting some kind of independent civilian oversight of police and are visiting communities this month to review their models.

Walker, who co-wrote the book “The New World of Police Accountability,” said citizen oversight is a must for all modern U.S. police agencies.

“Phoenix needs to get over this opposition to civilian oversight, it exists virtually everywhere else,” Walker said. “It is a basic way of building trust.”

Walker said there are two basic types of oversight: civilian review boards, which investigate individual complaints, and independent auditors or monitors, which he prefers because they recommend practices and policies. There are also hybrids with elements of both.

“The communities need a process they can trust, whether it is a board, an auditor or a monitor,” said Liana Perez, of the educational group National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

While oversight boards or monitors offer recommendations, final decisions on firings and other discipline lie with the police chief and city and state laws.

The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association said on its website it’s a “bad idea” for civilians unfamiliar with state and U.S. constitutional law to make independent recommendations about police discipline.

The union added residents already sit on some Phoenix police boards with officers and commanders who oversee use-of-force cases.

But the civilian review models would go further and be independent from the Police Department. Civilian board members could recommend discipline of officers and changes in policies and procedures. Depending on what Phoenix choses, board members could even get subpoena power to compel people they are investigating to testify.

The police union did not respond to requests for additional comment on civilian review.

The changes come after cellphone video emerged in June showing Phoenix officers answering a shoplifting call by aiming their guns and yelling obscenities at Dravan Ames and his pregnant fiancee, Iesha Harper, who was holding their 1-year-old daughter. The video sparked outcry nationwide.

The couple later said their 4-year-old daughter took a doll from a store without their knowledge.

Phoenix also has moved to build greater trust and transparency by recently rolling out the last of 2,000 body-worn cameras for a force approaching 3,000 officers, one of the last big police agencies in the U.S. to do so.

The department this month also began training officers to track when they point their guns at people, a procedure now embraced by departments nationwide.