The cops’ Citizens’ Review Committee is meeting tonight at City Hall, in an effort to ensure that as many journalists in town show up on election night that…well, I’m not sure about the timing, let’s put it that way. I won’t bore you for long about what’s been going on here tonight, and besides, there’s a party to go to…but it’s important. So…
CRC Meeting: On election night…

Oddly, there are ten boy scouts sitting at the back of the room. Apparently they’re here for a civic education class, and they all look thoroughly, thoroughly interested. Especially the one who’s text-messaging. The CRC oversees the city’s Independent Police Review process, and has been charged with coming up with changes to the IPR following the controversial report by a consultant back in January that said several things needed changing. Four CRC members met last week to talk about potential changes that could be made.

One subject that’s come up is more mediation between complainants and officers. “I’ve seen officers and complainants walk out almost hugging each other after the mediation is over, it’s a tremendous process,” says Mike Hess, who is an investigator for the IPR. Unfortunately for complainants, agreeing to mediation means waiving all rights to pursue a complaint further. So if officers show up and shake hands, they know there won’t be a blemish on their records. There’s not a motivation to be sincere, and the CRC members raised this.

Also, longer terms for the CRC commissioners is a possibility. They currently serve two year terms, which is just long enough to get to grips with how the process works, before they get replaced. Pete Sandrock, who is the IPR’s assistant director, has encouraged the CRC members to start lobbying the city commissioners for the changes they want to see made before the CRC formally presents a report back to council on what it wants to see done. No word, yet, on when the report will go back to council…but the CRC, whose members all volunteer their time, is considering starting another subcommittee to deal solely with changes related to the report. So it could be a while.

BREAKING STORY: The cop union filed a grievance with the police bureau related to it’s Employee Information System, this afternoon. That used to be called the “early intervention system,” and it was designed to collect information, not only about complaints, but arrest-records, commendations and so on, for individual officers. It’s understood that the union is concerned that the EIS could be used for disciplinary purposes, to spot “bad apple” officers, and the union is supposed to negotiate over such changes to the disciplinary process. We’ll catch up with union boss Robert King tomorrow.