The Mayor of Springfield recently disbanded the City’s powerless police community advisory board and unilaterally replaced it with a Board with investigative powers, including the power to subpoena records.  He also endowed it with the power to recommend punishment to the Police Commissioner, who continues to retain the power to punish police officers, which, by implication, means that he also has the power to not punish police officers, which gives him a de facto veto power over the investigative conclusions of the review board.   So, while the board’s new powers may make the process more transparent and improve the flow of information to the public, its added strength is more perception than reality, since the biggest problem of the police investigating the police remains.

       What follows are a few suggestions for development of a review board that reflects the community’s legitimate need to know that justice will be served and individual policemen’s legitimate right to know that they will be fairly and impartially reviewed. 

       First, there is certain police behavior that should be investigated by an independent review board and certain other behavior that should not be.  Most obviously, allegations of police brutality should be, while a police officer’s absence from roll call should be an internal personnel matter.  It is important that somebody distinguish those matters that should be subject to a review board and those that should not be.

       Second, the law department’s determination that the police Commissioner, by contract, has the sole right to determine if, when and how to punish police officers should be dissected and examined more closely.   It is doubtful that the Commissioner’s contractual authority is absolute.  Certainly his contractual powers cannot trump the power of the District Attorney to investigate and file a criminal complaint or of the Justice department to file a civil rights complaint.  A careful consideration of those things we want decided by a review board and those that should be decided internally by the Commissioner might reveal that the Commissioner’s contractual powers relative to the review board are also not so absolute.  Even if they are, the Commissioner’s contract is not a contract in perpetuity.  It will expire in a matter of a few years.  What should be a well thought out allocation of responsibility before the expiration of the Commissioner’s contract will be even more valuable and viable after it expires. 

       Third, the selection process for review board appointees should be given more serious consideration.  Members should not be selected by political appointment nor should they be selected by popular election, as some community folks are demanding.  Rather, the mayor would be better advised to appoint a special, blue ribbon committee to work with his personnel department to develop job criteria for the review board and its members and the blue ribbon committee should select the individual review board members based upon those clearly defined job criteria.  The blue ribbon committee should have the character, though maybe not quite the same gravitas, of a judicial nominating committee and be empowered to select review board members based upon their ability to investigate complaints, select fact from fiction and, where required, apply proportionate punishment. 

       It is an approach that takes the politics out of the process and avoids the problem of police judging the police and that also recognizes that fairness on certain issues is a two way street between the community, which has a right to a strong review board and the police, who have a right to know that they are being fairly and competently judged.