Citizens Police Review Board to be killed by Santa Cruz City Council
[Normally, my friend Robert Norse’s screeds make me wince, lacking all delicacy, etc. and often alienating vastly more people than they convince, in my mind - I have personal experience with this, such a flyer having potentially cost me a major endorsement when I ran for City Council. However - this time, the actions of the City Council are so utterly despicable, so completely transparently fraudulent and done without due process, that no other reaction is appropriate. -Thomas]
The Trial and Execution of
the Citizens Police Review Board
As Performed by the Santa Cruz City Council
Most of Whom Approved a $7 Million Cost Over-Run
For Our Fine Friendly and Well-Supplied New Police Station !
It certainly is high time that the Santa Cruz City Council realized that our community doesn’t
need any independent monitoring of our trusty local police. It needs more police power–something
recognized last week when Council passed “new tools” like the Move-Along and the 10’ Forbidden
Zones for musicians.
Today as we watch City Council eliminate this board of bashful liberals, we can be sure we are
here at the end of a lengthy fair and open public process. I am sure members of the community are
looking back with satisfaction on this long process where the issue of the effectiveness of the Citizens
Police Review Board [CPRB] was openly debated.
The City Council Committee that considered the issue — members Reilly, Fitzmaurice, and
Kennedy, we can be sure, held full public hearings, invited the media, and sought out the opinions and
experience of the volunteer members of the CPRB. After all, having invested $80,000 per year into
this Board for the last 8 years, we know City Council was mining the wisdom and experience of these
Board members.
Before bringing this matter to a vote as they are today, we can be sure the City Council
Committee showed these Board members and the taxpayers—respect they deserve by a careful analysis
of the effectiveness of the Board. We can be sure City Council also went to meetings of the
progresssive, community, and labor groups that endorsed them for election, and learned–most
certainly–that the SCPD fine job downtown, marred by the occasional beating of a homeless man
feeding the pigeons.
I’m sure that no racial bias is intended by axing the only Commission that has two
African-Americans on it, and the only commission that was actively pursuing the issue of racial
profiling, which, Chief Belcher assures us, does not happen here in Santa Cruz.
We are meeting here today in crisis mode. Our president, I’m sorry, our Mayor, has told us to
tighten our belts. We have seen the positive results of giving the police more power after City Council’s
great victory over the Hackeysacker/Bubbleblower/Street Performer Menace last summer. In today’s
City Council meeting–held at a convenient time for working people everywhere–we will witness
another wise delegation of power to the police. The power to clean up their own house, throw out their
own bad apples, and wash their own dirty laundry.
While our brave boys are traveling half a world away to defend freedom in Iraq, and our leaders
in Washington are struggling to root out the terrorist menace at home, we need to stand firmly behind
our thin-blue line here. They have the money (along with the fire dept. 52% of the budget!)! They have
the guns! They have the new wise National Security laws. And they have the wise assistance of our
well-trained & well-paid City Attorney. Leave it to the Chief! Let’s keep it All in the Family!
And–best of all–we can be sure that City Council’s decision will be freely arrived at. Without
any preconceived agenda or backroom “done deal.” Without any undue influence from the Police
Officers Association [POA]. Without any tiresome protests by homeless people, racial minorities, or
dissatisfied youth. Well, they can protest–as long as they don’t applaud or boo at City Council
meetings, and keep their political tables moving every hour on the hour!
We must thank City Council for avoiding the embarrassment that happened back in 1999.
When poor Officer David LaFavor, after having been exonerated by his fellow officers, had complaints
sustained against him by the CPRB. Such cruel and slanderous conclusions as excessive force on a
woman with a child, excessive force against the man defending that mother and child, and inappropriate
use of mace against the man forced the beleaguered constable to move elsewhere. Luckily such public
scandals are few, but why take the chance–particularly when certain questionable individuals on the
board are pressing for more powers.
Why should the SCPD be forced to make a report every time some officer pulls out his gun,
raises his baton, or wields his pepper spray? Aren’t we wasting enough paper already? Chief Belcher
has wisely kept the CPRB out of this debate for the last year by declining to respond to the rude
inquiries of Board member David Rouen. Let the police police themselves! Simpler, cheaper, more
American.
And the insulting claim that police should be denied their traditional “selective enforcement” tool
downtown–as recently passed by this renegade board! Can anyone sleep well at night knowing that our
officers will have to actually enforce the laws against good guys instead of using them, as they were
intended, to rid our village square of the scum and vermin that dirty-up our downtown?
If we need some sort of review process, there’s always the San Jose Auditor model, where an
attorney and staff, working closely with our trusted Chief, will be able to address the very few
irregularities that arise from time to time. True, the model costs more than our current Board. True it
would require a larger and better-trained staff. But, where the police department is concerned (witness
our proud $13 million police station with only a $7 million cost overun) money’s no object here, right?
And a special vote of thanks to Vice-Mayor Kennedy. He wisely cut off the embarrassing
investigation into our distinguished sergeant Loren “Butchie” Baker in 1992 by proposing this Board,
then cleverly stripped it of most of its teeth (mandated independent investigation and regular public
hearings), and today, I’m sure, will vote to eliminate this unnecessary speed bump in the process of
letting our police force do its job!
Thank you, City Council, for your wisdom in speedily eliminating this embarrassment to our
City and to the fighting men and women of the SCPD!
