Police Assn. Changes Tack in Favor of Review Panel

Saying it fears the public has lost confidence in the integrity of the city’s police force, the Long Beach Police Officers Assn. has reversed its position and says it favors a citizen review board to handle officer misconduct complaints.

Michael B. Tracy, president of the 650-member association, said the Police Department’s system of discipline has become so intolerable that his members believe any change would be an improvement.

The organization has submitted its own plan, which would actually give a civilian review board more authority than plans endorsed by the Public Safety Advisory Commission and other organizations. The association’s proposal would give the civilian panel authority to recommend disciplinary action against officers, an area now controlled by Police Chief Lawrence L. Binkley.

Officers believe they have been unfairly disciplined under Binkley’s administration, Tracy said.

Turnabout in Position

The association’s turnabout came last week before the Public Safety Advisory Commission, a residents group that unanimously approved its own plan to set up a citizen review board coupled with an “independent investigator” to handle police misconduct cases. The proposal will be submitted to the City Council.

Whether or not the association’s suggestions are adopted, Tracy pledged support and active campaigning for whatever citizen review board plan emerges from the City Council. Proponents of a civilian review board say the move would require a change in the city charter, thus requiring that the issue be submitted to voters.

The commission wants to create a seven-member “citizen complaint board” that would hold public hearings to adjudicate complaints after an investigation by an independent investigator. Disciplinary recommendations, however, would remain in the hands of the police chief.

Plan Calls for 9-Member Panel

Its members would be proposed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. The panel would consist of members who represent the community’s diverse ethnic and sexual makeup, according to the proposal.

The police organization’s proposal calls for a nine-member “police practices review committee” that would make disciplinary recommendations as well as sustaining or rejecting complaints of police misconduct.

Five of the members would be appointed by each City Council member. The plan does not address how the four remaining members would be appointed. The mayor would appoint a single non-voting member to preside.

The plan contemplates opening four offices in commercial districts across the city where complaints could be filed with an independent investigator who would assess their validity. The police chief would make disciplinary recommendations to the board, which would then hold a hearing and make a decision.

The Long Beach chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, backed by 13 other community organizations, has already submitted its own review board plan to the City Council.

NAACP chapter President Frank Berry said the plan is similar to the advisory commission’s proposal. But it calls for a 13-member review board, instead of seven. And the independent investigator would report to the review board instead of the city manager.

Tracy said his members sense that public opinion has swung in favor of a citizen review board. The change, he said, was sparked by the January incident in which Officer Mark Dickey appeared to push black activist Don Jackson into a plate-glass window during a routine traffic stop.

‘No Confidence’

The incident was secretly videotaped by NBC and broadcast nationally. Jackson has been feted in the black community for his self-styled crusade against perceived police racism and brutality. Dickey and partner Mark Ramsey have been charged with misdemeanors arising from the incident.

“The public no longer has confidence” in the city’s police officers that it held before the incident, said Tracy, who was accompanied at the hearing by a contingent of the association’s members and their attorney. “We should be reflecting community attitudes, so we should be able to change our minds.”

Tracy said the association would prefer to have disciplinary decisions handled by a citizen review board, even though its members might have little familiarity with police procedures and tactics.

Tracy told the commission that the association has no objection to holding open meetings of the review board to air misconduct allegations. “We’d like the whole (process) opened up,” he said later in an interview.

Deputy Police Chief David Dusenbury, who was monitoring the meeting for Binkley, said he had no immediate reaction to the association’s proposal or to the general concept of a citizen review board.

In Hands of Council

“Our position is, it is in the hands of the City Council,” he said.

Councilman Tom Clark, one of four council members who attended the commission’s meeting, said he opposed the association’s proposal to send disciplinary recommendations to the review board, instead of the police chief.

“I think you would have some serious management problems,” Clark said.

Councilman Clarence Smith, a longtime supporter of a citizen review board, called the association’s decision to back the idea “excellent.” He added, “I think they’re seeing we have a problem.”

Smith said his Quality of Life Committee should be able to submit a recommendation to the council within a week after the committee receives the three proposals.