Police review board, policy changes part of discussion following review of Lawrence Police Department’s ticket voiding practices

City Manager Tom Markus said he’s open to looking at more policy changes for the Lawrence Police Department following a review that raised questions about how police officers void municipal court citations.

Except in rare circumstances, Markus said he questions whether police officers should have the ability to both issue and void municipal court citations. The new city manager also said a city-appointed board that formally reviews complaints about the police department may have merit.

Marcus made his comments after a recent review by the Journal-World found that since 2012 around 90 municipal court citations were voided by officers without proper approval from supervisors. More than 100 additional tickets were canceled without following required procedures.

Excluding parking tickets and instances of mechanical malfunctions, Markus said perhaps the dismissal of all municipal citations should be handled entirely by the city’s court system.

“You hope that when your officer writes the ticket they’re using good judgement in writing that ticket, and if somebody wants to argue that ticket they will,” Markus said. “But the officer can’t be doing the enforcement and then adjudicating it too.”

The city said in an email that since 2012 more than 100,000 tickets have been issued, calling the voided or dismissed tickets statistically “insignificant.”

However, Markus — who took over as city manager late last month — said the system might still warrant a closer look.

“The argument’s already been made … that it’s an insignificant percentage of the total, but from my perspective I’d rather have a third party adjudicating those tickets,” he said.

Other Kansas police departments, like those in Topeka and Olathe, only allow city prosecutors to void tickets. Other than on an exceptional few occasions, typically related to equipment malfunctions, officers in those communities are prohibited from canceling tickets themselves. Following the Journal-World’s review, police department officials said they may review such a policy change for Lawrence.

Markus said that although the ability to void tickets should potentially be shifted away from police, it’s important that officers maintain some amount of discretion.

“If you look at it just from a customer-service standpoint, you want officers to have enough discretion to be able to deal with the customer, so to speak, our public, at the point of contact,” he said.

Most police departments give officers discretion in determining whether to write a ticket or give a violator a warning, such as in traffic cases or other municipal infractions. Where departments differ, though, is whether officers — sometimes days after the fact — have the discretion to cancel a ticket after it already has been issued.

In agreement with Markus, City Commissioner Matthew Herbert said officers should absolutely be afforded some discretion within their position.

Herbert added that policy changes, in whatever form they might come, may not be an effective deterrent for favoritism within the police department.

“Ultimately we can craft all the policy in the world, but so long as officer discretion exists, which it should, you’re never going to have a solution,” Herbert said.

City Commissioner Lisa Larsen and Mayor Mike Amyx both said officers should maintain the ability to void tickets so long as the process has some oversight.

The Journal-World review did find that citations were being voided without proper supervisor approval. As part of the review, the police department found 88 void dismissal forms that had been misplaced in a lockbox, in some cases for years. The citations were voided, even though the void dismissal forms had not been approved by a police supervisor as required by department policy. The review also found that in more than 100 instances, police officers filled out the wrong forms, creating questions about whether proper approvals had been granted.

In response to the review, the police department said that it will now conduct an annual audit of the void and dismissal process, that it has created new forms to eliminate confusion, and that it has implemented new training with officers.


Review board

Another possible change that might benefit both the Lawrence Police Department and city residents as a whole could be a type of citizen oversight board, Markus said.

Before coming to Lawrence, Markus served for five years as city manager of Iowa City, Iowa.

In Iowa City, Markus said the police department has the Citizen Police Review Board, or CPRB. That board’s purpose is to review complaints filed against the police department, offering area residents an additional outlet for complaints if they don’t feel comfortable filing a complaint within the department itself.

The board’s existence helps to eliminate concerns about police investigating themselves, Markus said.

The Lawrence Police Department currently has a board called the Citizens’ Advisory Board for Fair and Impartial Policing. This board is specifically meant to address instances of racial profiling.

No other group exists to provide citizen oversight for the department. However, Markus said the creation of a new board, similar to the CPRB in Iowa City, might be worthwhile.

“I think it has value, and to that extent I think there is merit for us to consider it,” he said. “I like to be ahead of problems, and I like for our department to be progressive in their own nature in terms of how we interact with our community.”

Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib was not available for an interview seeking comment for this story.

Other Kansas towns like Manhattan, Topeka and Olathe have citizen review boards allowing area residents to submit complaints about their departments. However those boards are also involved in scrutinizing police policies and activities.

Matthew Droge, public information officer for the Riley County Police Department in Manhattan, said his department has had a Community Advisory Board or CAB for several years.

Along with allowing citizens an additional outlet for complaints and looking at matters of policy, the CAB acts as a liaison between the department and the community, Droge said.

Topeka Police Lt. Colleen Stuart said Topeka’s department has had a Chief’s Advisory Board for around 10 years.

Recently Topeka’s police chief, James Brown, began reviewing and updating the department’s use of force policy and he contacted his advisory board to have a hand in developing the new rules, Stuart said.

Both Stuart and Droge said their respective boards are an asset to their departments.

“You kind of have to have input from the community,” Droge said. “Otherwise you’re just guessing.”

“Sometimes we get so focused in on our job that we may forget how a certain policy or how a certain procedure may affect or be perceived by the community,” Stuart said. “So it’s always nice to have that partnership so they can keep us grounded.”

Markus said that while he might support the creation of a citizen board to review complaints filed against the police department, with the city’s current form of government and its built-in checks and balances, he doesn’t believe the city needs a board to specifically address the department’s policies and practices.

“The elected officials hire me, and the police chief is a direct report to the city manager,” he said. “So it isn’t just the police chief that monitors and looks at those issues. The manager does as well.”

When asked whether the city should consider creating a board of citizens to review police department policies and activities, Amyx said he believes the “Lawrence City Commission is supposed to be that board, and I take that very seriously.”

However, when asked earlier about recent changes in the department’s ticket voiding policies, Amyx said he couldn’t speak in depth on the issue because it wasn’t something he was overly familiar with.

Other Lawrence city commissioners responded in kind when asked similar questions.

“I’m not familiar with the changes they’ve made, so I wouldn’t really know whether those are better than before,” said Herbert.

“I don’t really know a lot about that stuff in general. It’s something I’ll have to look into, I guess,” said Commissioner Leslie Soden.

Larsen also said she was not very familiar with recent changes within the department, and Commissioner Stuart Boley did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Both Herbert and Soden said they would be open to the idea of creating a citizen review board if that’s what the community asks for.

Before he fully backs the creation of a new board, however, Herbert said he would need to know more about what its role would be and that he would be more supportive of a board that would discuss how specific ordinances would be enforced within the city.

Soden said expanding the responsibilities of the existing board may also be an option.