Police review board derided
Members call for reforms to boost its powers, staff
With police transparency a hot national issue in the wake of numerous highly questionable shootings, Houston’s Independent Police Oversight Board is under attack by its own members and a growing chorus of activists, who call it a toothless watchdog that isn’t independent and hasn’t performed any public oversight since it was created five years ago.
The 21-member board, as established by thenMayor Annise Parker, can review matters only referred to it by the Houston Police Department, has no paid staff, lacks even limited subpoena power and isn’t allowed to tell the public what it’s doing.
James Douglas, a law professor and president of the Houston branch of the NAACP, said if the board is to be a watchdog, “it can’t be chained up,” and former Houston police chief and City Council member C.O. “Brad” Bradford called it “purely cosmetic” and said it has no real power to in-
vestigate police conduct.
Despite such criticism, Mayor Sylvester Turner, after a recent meeting with board members, wouldn’t say whether he plans to make changes.
“It remains under review,” he said.
But with tensions already high in some Houston neighborhoods — Houston led all Texas cities in police shootings over the past year by far — activists say the city is courting a community eruption with its lack of transparency.
Austin, by contrast, spends $1.2 million a year to operate an independent Office of Police Monitor with a paid staff of nine. Others cities go even further. Chicago, for example, has an Independent Police Review Authority, a city agency separate from its police department, with five full-time investigators, part of 80 staffers who include attorneys and a press officer. Lack of independence
Leading the current reform charge in Houston is Philip Hilder, a member of the oversight board and former federal prosecutor, who has publicly called for the board to have the power to initiate its own investigations with paid staff, limited subpoena power and a security clearance so that it can monitor highly intrusive new electronic spying technology used to intercept cellphone calls.
“I believe that the oversight board needs to be reconstituted to be given clear, independent authority to investigate independently of the police department, and make recommended policy changes directly to the police department, the mayor’s office and City Council,” Hilder said. “As the board is currently constituted, its mission is to review a body of cases that have been referred to it by HPD’s Internal Affairs. True independence would be gained if the board has the ability to initiate its own investigation when appropriate.”
Gerald Birnberg, another panel member and longtime Houston criminal defense attorney, said that expanding the group’s role could help dispel mistrust between the community and the police — if HPD provides the information needed for meaningful reviews. Sometimes, the police department provides information, he said, and sometimes, it doesn’t, claiming that would “mess up the process.” He agreed with Hilder that paid staff is needed.
Since the oversight board was created, HPD itself has found no officer at fault in more than 150 officer-involved shootings — including cases in which one officer shot and killed a mentally ill man in a wheelchair and another wounded an unarmed hospital patient. Typically, citizens have no way of knowing whether the oversight board ever objected to the department’s findings.
The public got rare insight into the board’s closed review process earlier this year, when a federal judge ordered the city to release the Internal Affairs investigations in the shootings of five unarmed residents as part of a pending civil rights lawsuit. The case was brought by the father of Kenneth Releford, a U.S. Navy veteran who was fatally shot in 2012 on his street following a mental episode with neighbors.
One of those investigations involved an unarmed man named Rufino Lara, who was shot and killed by a Houston officer after Lara had been the victim of an armed robbery attempt and asked a friend to call 911 to summon help. While the oversight board supported the finding by the Houston Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division that the shooting was legally justified, it determined the officer fired too quickly.
In a recommendation that was never made public, the board called for retraining all HPD officers on taking cover and other tactics to avoid shootings, according to records the Houston Chronicle ob- tained recently from federal court files.
That training began last year — three years after Lara’s death.
The oversight board makes its recommendations by filling in a halfpage box on a form provided by Internal Affairs after the division forwards a matter for review. But the board’s recommendations are made behind closed doors and met with minimal feedback, Birnberg said.
Bradford, who served as Houston police chief from 1997 to 2004 before his election to City Council in 2010, thinks the city should allow community stakeholders to make appointments to the review board, instead of only the mayor. Those community groups should include the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Urban League, the League of Women Voters, the Houston bar associations and local mental health authorities, the former chief said.
“The process (currently) is cosmetic because it’s not independent, and it won’t be independent until some of the members are appointed independently of City Hall involvement,” Bradford said. Austin’s answer
The current board leaves a huge gulf between Houston and other reform-minded cities, such as Austin. Its Office of Police Monitor accepts complaints about police misconduct from the public and refers them to Internal Affairs, as well as conducting outreach across the city.
Additionally, the monitor’s office has full access to all Austin Police Department computer case files in investigations by both Internal Affairs and the Special Investigation Unit, which investigates shootings by police, said Police Monitor Margo Frasier. The staff sits in on IA interviews of witnesses, can suggest questions and submit the names of witnesses to be questioned by police, she said.
“I’ve always been surprised that cities the size of Houston and Dallas don’t have an office like ours,” said Frasier, an attorney with extensive law enforcement experience, including as sheriff of Travis County. “It makes good sense to have people make complaints with someone besides the people you have a beef with.”
Frasier notes she is called to the scene of every officer-involved shooting, as well as to every death of a person in police custody.
“If an Austin police officer fires a weapon at a human being with the intent to hit them, I get notified,” Frasier said. “If a person dies in custody, we will respond to the scene, to make sure of the integrity of the investigation and be present when the officer does a walk through with Special Investigation Unit.”
The Police Monitor’s website is updated every six months with a report on the number and nature of complaints brought against Austin police, and it immediately posts copies of every officer’s disciplinary suspension as soon as it is signed by the police chief.
Frasier noted that about half of the residents who visit her office to complain about their contact with police ultimately do not file an official complaint with APDInternal Affairs, since many times talking to staff about their experience is enough. The Office of Police Monitor also facilitates meetings with an officer’s supervisor for residents who do not want to make a formal complaint. “I think that in Austin because of the existence of our office, people feel that complaints are taken more seriously,” Frasier said. ‘Arm of the police’
Fraiser said her office does not investigate Austin police but attempts to ensure the internal investigations by police of their own members are complete and fair, and points it out publicly if they’re not.
“Somebody outside the police department, the Police Monitor, is making sure the police are doing the right thing,” said Fraiser.
In Houston, said NAACP president Douglas, the public won’t have confidence in its work until it has the ability to conduct its own inquiries.
“The way it’s structured, most people see the board as an arm of the police department,” Douglas said.