photo by: City of Lawrence

Members of the Community Police Review Board provide comments at their meeting on April 14, 2022, after Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart delivered a report about community complaints made against police in the first three months of 2022.

On the heels of one of its members resigning in protest, Lawrence’s Community Police Review Board got its first report regarding complaints against police and began discussing a new process to reconsider police oversight.

As part of its meeting Thursday, the board received the resignation letter of board member Jane Gibson, heard a report from the police chief regarding recent complaints, and began reviewing a draft proposal to create a larger work group, the Community Police Oversight Task Force.

In remarks at the beginning of the meeting, Board Chair Jennifer Robinson thanked Gibson for her 3.5 years of service on the board. Robinson reiterated Gibson’s call for the board to be given the information and authority to play an oversight role.

“I share Jane’s vision for the CPRB to not merely be window dressing, but to partner with the (Lawrence Police Department) and community members in order to improve transparency, trust and accountability,” Robinson said.

In February, Gibson said the board in its current form was “window dressing” and resigned in protest of what she saw as a lack of support for the board’s effort to strengthen oversight of complaints against police, as the Journal-World reported. Gibson expressed concern about the lack of transparency regarding complaints against police and a lack of support to improve oversight from city leaders, including the police chief. Police Chief Rich Lockhart disputed that claim and said he was completely committed to transparency.

In recent years, information in public police department reports about complaints against police became increasingly limited, with the department at one point essentially only giving a tally of how many complaints were made and whether they were sustained. At Thursday’s meeting, Lockhart said the department would begin giving monthly reports to the board about community complaints against police, and he began by running through six complaints against police that have been made since the beginning of the year, two of which were sustained.

The complaints included one bias-based policing complaint, in which Lockhart said someone riding their bike was stopped by police because they “matched the description” of a reported shoplifter and were “wearing similar clothing.” He said the officer was exonerated. He said the two sustained complaints both had to do with violations of department policy, namely an officer violating three policies, including two “standards of conduct” and the body-worn camera policy, and another officer who made an “improper U-turn.” The other three exonerated complaints had to do with neglect of duty and conduct; an identification complaint; and an excessive force complaint. Lockhart provided the report orally, but he said that a written report would be provided going forward.

In reference to those sustained complaints, Lockhart said he thought Lawrence had a good police department with good people, and that the department has good policies in place to hold people accountable. He said that included transparency.

“We are an open police department,” Lockhart said. “So for instance tonight you are receiving complaints that you haven’t ever received or even asked for. We want to work with you to make sure that this process is fair to all of our people in our community. It needs to be, because that’s what procedural justice is, that’s what constitutional policing is.”

Board members expressed appreciation for the change in procedure. Board member Michael Santos said having that information was important in order for the board to get a sense of patterns and other issues related to police. Board member Marie Taylor also lauded the improvement in transparency.

“(This transparency) is the first we’ve had in the years of reporting, where we’ve asked, is it possible to have more details and context for the complaints?” Taylor said. “And we really didn’t need to change the ordinance in order to have that kind of good working relationship between the police department and the board.”

Because of the limited purview it was given under city ordinance, the board has not reviewed any complaints in the nearly four years since it was created. Under the city’s current process, complaints against police filed both internally and by members of the public are investigated by the employee’s direct supervisor or by a division of the police department. The board only reviews complaints dealing with racial and other bias and only if the person involved decides to appeal the department’s decision. An appeal must be submitted in writing within 14 days to be valid.

The City Commission directed the board to review its governing ordinance in June 2020, and the board worked for over a year to draft changes that would have given the board a broader ability to review complaints. But on Jan. 5, before that draft had been submitted to the commission, the commission directed the board to launch a new, broader process to consider police oversight and other issues. That action was based in part on a recommendation from a city-hired consultant that recommended the formation of a new task force to consider the issues at hand.

As part of the meeting, the board began reviewing the draft project charter for the task force. The board did not finish completing edits to the draft, but one of the key changes agreed to was that the scope of work should — in addition to a review of the complaint process and the ordinance — specifically assess whether the board should serve an advisory, review or oversight role in the complaint process.

The board will continue revising the draft at its next meeting. The final draft will then be considered by the City Commission.