No time for delay

Task force must offer substantial changes to Houston police operations and oversight.

Growing up in Texas and working for a time as a reserve police officer in East St. Louis, Ill., Laurence “Larry” Payne brings 70 years of life experience to his role as chairman of Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Task Force on Policing Reform.

“I’ve been shot at while wearing a police uniform and I’ve been shot at just for being a Black person in Orange, Texas, trying to survive the Klan,” Payne told the editorial board. “I’ve been driving while Black for the past 50 years. I’ve been stopped plenty of times over those years … in five different states. I have seen policing from both sides. I’ve seen community from both sides.”

Payne believes that background will help him to shepherd the 45-member task force through a 90-day study and review process that will produce recommendations for historic change in the way that policing is done in Houston.

Johnny Mata, the 83-year-old director of the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice and a longtime civil rights activist and advocate, thinks we already know what changes need to be made and only require the political will to get them done.

“No disrespect to the people on the task force — they are all good people — but this is just kicking the can down the road again,” he said.

Mata’s pessimism is well-earned, but this time, we hope he’s wrong. Delaying, diluting or denying the demand for substantial change in policing would be a moral and political failure. The task force should be bold, innovative and urgent in its recommendations. As this editorial board has said before, those changes must include, at least, an oversight board with the power to hold officers accountable and to provide more transparency within the department.

Payne and Mata agree that fundamental reforms are needed. Their differences in approach highlight the contradictory feelings about the working group the mayor formed in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police and local unrest over recent police shootings and the delayed release of body cam footage and other material from high-profile police actions.

Payne said we “must trust the process” and move forward “so that we don’t have to continue to do the same things around policing that we’ve done since the Houston Police Department was formed in 1900.”

Mata declined an invitation to serve as a special adviser to the task force: “It’s window dressing,” he said. “We know the problems in the system. We could start fixing them tomorrow.”

Mata is not alone among activists in his doubts. More than 100 residents called in to a city council committee meeting last month, many to complain that more immediate action wasn’t being taken.

The low point came when council members asked Marvin Hamilton, the chairman of the Independent Police Oversight Board, his recommendations on how the board could be strengthened or improved.

“That’s a good question, and I don’t think I can answer that without putting a lot of thought into it,” said Hamilton, who has served on the board since 2012, the last two as chairman. “And you don’t have time for me to really think about it, so I can’t really answer that question.”

When asked whether the board should have subpoena power, Hamilton responded: “It’s hard to address something you’ve never had.”

Come again? It’s inexcusable for the person leading a watchdog group at the center of local discussions on police reform not to have contemplated hard questions the public has been debating for weeks. What does it say about Hamilton and his leadership, and about the mayor’s appointment of him, that he came unprepared to discuss a key item on the task force’s agenda?

We hope it doesn’t signal the lack of commitment Mata fears.

He said a truly independent review board with the power to initiate investigations and subpoena documents may be the single most important step to holding police accountable.

Payne said the task force will look at different models and best practices from around the country before making its recommendations.

“I go back to the word systemic,” he said. “This is so deeply ingrained as a systemic issue that the easy fixes, the fine-tuning around the edges, the little quick things, those things don’t necessarily work. They’re not long-lasting, they don’t get to the root of the problem and they don’t allow you to dig deep and ask the hard questions behind the question to get to the systemic issue.”

We are encouraged by those words. We dearly hope the city’s drawn-out process is a function of ambition rather than vacillation. The task force holds its first meetings this week.