Turner appoints 45-member panel to review HPD, consider changes

Mayor Sylvester Turner on Wednesday announced the appointment of 45 people to a task force that will review Houston Police Department policies in what will be a closely watched effort to consider reforms.

Laurence “Larry” Payne, a former staffer of Mayor Kathy Whitmire and U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, will chair the committee, which includes activists, academics, business leaders, law enforcement officials and clergy.

Among them: Bishop James Dixon II of the NAACP; Hispanic Chamber of Commerce CEO Laura Murillo; former criminal district court judge Marc Carter; George Rhyne of the Texas AntiGang Center; and rapper Trae tha

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The mayor has identified a few issues he would like the task force to consider. They include the department’s use-of-force policy; when to release body camera footage; and whether the city’s Independent Police Oversight Board — widely seen as toothless — should be enhanced with subpoena power.

The group is expected to bring recommendations in the next 60 days and to complete a report by Sept. 1, Turner said.

The launch of the working group was met with skepticism by some activists, who argued the city has studied the issue thoroughly in the past and that it is time for action.

“We believe it when we see it. Because we’ve never seen it,” said Tarsha Jackson, an advocate who formerly was the criminal justice director for the Texas Organizing Project.

Jackson served on the criminal justice committee of the mayor’s transition team, which in 2016 identified a slew of potential reforms. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas last week released a progress report that found Turner has not acted on most of those recommendations.

They included the implementation of a cite-and-release policy for minor crimes; reducing wasteful

spending by converting more of the department’s positions to civilians instead of sworn officers; adopting a body camera policy that would release footage to “maximize public access,” and decreasing the city’s reliance on court fines and jail as a revenue source.

Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, chaired that transition committee, and said the ACLU is correct that it has been left mostly on the shelf.

However, Thompson said, the committee did not address everything being discussed today. For example, the committee did not have detailed conversations about officers’ use of force, she said, and the Black Lives Matter movement was not at the forefront of the debate as it is now.

“I think we would write a very different report today than what my committee did,” she said. “A lot has changed.”

That was Turner’s argument, as well. He said the national reckoning that followed the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., has marked a turning point in the debate.

“Anything that was done prior to (that), really doesn’t take into account what has taken place over the last several weeks across this country. So, it is important for us to address these issues now,” Turner said. “I don’t think anyone would say what was discussed four-and-ahalf

years ago is enough to meet these particular times.”

Turner also named five special advisers for the task force, four of whom are religious leaders. Six of the task force members also come from religious groups.

The task force features 33 men (39 including the chair and advisers) and 12 women.

There is a wide range of advocates on the panel, including Mamie Garcia of LULAC and organizer Shekira Dennis. There also are four academics, including Texas Southern University’s Carla Brailey.

Four members have some involvement in the criminal justice system, and four listed some affiliation with law enforcement, such as Rania Mankarious of Crime Stoppers and Terry Bratton, chair of the Houston Police Officers’ Pension System Board of Trustees.

Three of the members were listed simply as “millennials.” And one, Robert Satcher, is a NASA astronaut.

Ashton Woods, the founder of Black Lives Matter Houston, said the mayor excluded a lot of grassroots activists.

“As I thought, THIS task force is full of people WHO ALREADY HAD POWER to change things,” Woods wrote on Twitter. “Besides a couple of people who do real work, I have ZERO faith that things will change. Another empty gesture.”

For many, the value of the task force will lie in its final work — and whether it results in change. Johnny

Mata, a longtime Houston activist who is serving as a special adviser for the task force, said previous committees and task forces have failed to produce meaningful reforms. Turner’s policing task force needs to pursue serious changes that the activist community is calling for, he said.

“Elected officials need to quit kicking the can down the road,” Mata said. “I don’t want to say any negative things about who’s been named. I’m just saying, we’ve been down this road before. And right now, I look for substance.”

Ginny Goldman, a co-chair of Turner’s executive transition committee, said there are “a host of issues” that are unique to Houston, such as flood control, that warrant task forces. Police reform, Goldman argued, is not one of those issues.

“There’s a way to design a task force to get real work done on an urgent timeline,” she said. “And there’s a way to design a task force that stalls action and creates political theater. We need to find out which one this is.”

One member of the panel, Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation president Lacy Wolf, said he agrees with those criticizing the task force as insufficient, but views it as the only real option to push for police reform at the city.

“Besides continuing with these protests, how else can you move anything forward?” Wolf said. “We really don’t have any other type of avenue.”

Still, Wolf said, the task force is too large and does not adequately represent those impacted by police violence. He said that puts added pressure on members such as himself who represent people seeking major reform.

“I’m a single voice, but I’m the lead voice of many, many people, and they’re going to be pushing me if I start slacking off or anything,” said Wolf, whose coalition includes more than 90 unions and 60,000 members. “They’ll be right behind me rallying with bullhorns and signs.”

Turner has jumped ahead of the task force in adopting some immediate measures. The mayor signed an executive order earlier this month that adopted the use-offorce policies outlined in the #8CantWait campaign, many of which already were practiced by HPD.

Otherwise, Turner has stuck to his position that Houston needs more police officers, not fewer. His $5.1 billion budget, approved unanimously June 10 by city council amid protests outside City Hall, included an increase of roughly $19 million for police, bringing the department’s resources to $965 million.

Much of that increase was required by a 2018 labor contract giving officers 3-percent raises. The budget also included five police cadet classes.