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Ann Arborites Demand Police Accountability

Ann Arborites Demand Police Accountability image Ann Arborites Demand Police Accountability image
Parent Issue
Month
June
Year
1989
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

ANN ARBORITES DEMAND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY

by Jonathan Weber

ANN ARBOR- While the Ann Arbor Police Department (AAPD) is involved in procedures to gain "accreditation" from an organization formed by four law enforcement officer associations, citizen complaints about the AAPD's performance are mounting.

To receive accreditation, Ann Arbor Police Chief William Corbett is paying $11,500 in fees to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) plus untold amounts of staff time. This includes the full-time designation of a command officer, Executive Deputy Chief William Hoover, as Accreditation Manager.

Corbett was quoted in The Ann Arbor News (April 18,1989) as saying that gaining accreditation would be a "tremendous boost" for the AAPD, "and by following to the letter the standards set out by the commission (CALEA), we can respond adequately and fairly to any criticism which might arise within the community." Critics say that the attempt to gain accreditation is designed to help the AAPD avoid or dispute criticism of the department rather than respond fairly to it.

CALEA's standards do not require citizen involvement in the formulation and implementation of policies that require proper police behavior according lo Arlington, Texas police chief, David Kunkle, of CALEA. And without citizen involvement, say these critics, there will continue lo be a problem with uncorrected police misconduct.

Local attorney Jonathan Rose described CALEA' s standards as vague and insubstantial. "The document is value neutral, and anyone could meet its requirements by filling in the blanks. Write a policy on this. Write a policy on that. It is a loose gridwork within which standards are inserted. The standards inserted can be the blueprint for a democratic civilization, or for a police state." Rose made his comments to CALEA representatives May 16 at a public hearing on the AAPD's fitness for accreditation at City Hall. About 50 people attended the hearing.

Some speakers praised the department while most took advantage of a rare opportunity to publicly register complaints about the AAPD. The most frequently mentioned complaints concerned Secrecy surrounding departmental policies and procedures, attempts to avoid complaints about police misconduct, mishandling of the disposition of those complaints, discriminatory enforcement or lack of enforcement of laws, excessive use of force, and the lack of citizen involvement.

At the hearing, former city council member Dave DeVarti testified to "a pattern of excessive force" and "a pattern of charges of racially biased enforcement."

DeVarti also decried a lack of openness on the department's part. As a council member, DeVarti said he had to ask the AAPD several times for the department' s policy on the use of force by the police before they produced a copy for him.The AAPD marked the copy they produced "CONFIDENTIAL." When it was discovered on May 12, 1989, that DeVarti might make public some of the contents of the document, he was threatened with arrest. At press time, no one from the AAPD or the County Prosecutor's office had contacted DeVarti to make good those threats.

In a phone interview, Accreditation Manager Hoover denied that the AAPD operates in secrecy and excludes the public from involvement in formulating police policies. "Citizens are involved in the sense that we constantly receive feedback from the public and it is used in making new procedure," he said. He cited AAPD cooperation with the Anti-Violence and Discrimination Task Force in formulating a new employee misconduct complaint policy as an example of police openness.

Linda Kurtz and Patty Meyers of the Task Force acknowledged that the AAPD had been willing to meet with them, but did not agree that one meeting translated into a policy of openness and responsiveness. The AAPD refused to give written responses to Task Force questions about police policies and only forwarded a copy of the employee misconduct complaint policy some five months after the Task Force first requested the information.

"We appreciated that they met with us," Kurtz said, "but it only came after a lot of organizing on our part. The average person who goes alone to the Police with a complaint about the Police won't get any meaningful response."

Former city council member Jeff Epton has long been an advocate of citizen oversight of complaints involving police misconduct. At the hearing, he described an incident in which an Ann Arbor police officer held a Black man in custody in handcuffs long after being told by a fellow officer that the crime the arrested man was being held for had been a false alarm, a storekeeper 's error. The wrongly arrested man eventually sued and settled for $4,000. The police officer whose misconduct led to the suit was promoted six months later and still serves as a detective at the department.

Epton, DeVarti, Kurtz, Meyers, Rose, and others are calling for citizen oversight of complaints of police misconduct. But, Hoover says he would not favor citizen oversight and knows of no discussions within the department for formulating such a plan.

After the hearing, one of the members of CALEA 's panel there, Rapid City. South Dakota police chief Thomas L. Hennies, speaking for himself and not CALEA, said: "If a tax-paying citizen does not have a say in the policies of his police department, something is doggone wrong there."

Jonathan Weber along with Jonathan Rose form the Ann Arbor law firm of Rose & Weber which currently represents Harold Marcuse in a lawsuit against the AAPD and others.