Two regular citizens have begun serving on an internal board that reviews how officers use force, from punches to pepper spray and tasers.
The board doesn’t handle shootings or excessive force complaints, which are handled by an internal investigation and the commonwealth’s attorney. The point, said Chief Steve Drew, is to expose officers and citizens to each other’s points of view.
“When something happens — either here or abroad, anywhere in our country — and there’s outcry that citizens aren’t involved enough in law enforcement today, citizens here in Newport News will say, ‘We are involved. That’s not our police department,’ ” Drew said.
It’s in line with initiatives Drew has undertaken since taking over the department in early July — including citizens in the promotion process, for example — aimed at building trust.
The only requirement to serve on the board, which assembles a different group of people each month and first met in mid-October, is to complete one of the department’s citizens academies.
Board members read statements from officers and witnesses and see unedited body camera footage. Ultimately they vote on whether the use of force was within or out of department policy. They might also make suggestions for changes in training or policy. The officers under review are invited, but not required, to attend the meetings.
“I’m educating other members of this organization when they sit on that use of force review board,” Drew said. “There’s good conversation that comes through there.”
Reports still go to the chief of police for final approval. If the board finds an officer violated policy, the case will go to a department-wide discipline review board that will decide on what the next step should be, whether that’s additional training or a suspension.
All of the meetings are secret, and participants are required to sign a nondisclosure agreement. In 2017, officers filed 64 use of force reports, with 78 percent of uses found in policy.
“It’s all about being much more transparent and trying to better the department,” Drew said. “But I think the department is getting as much education from it and learning as much as the citizens are.”
The board is based on a similar one at the Richmond Police Department, where Drew worked for 25 years before coming to Newport News. No other police department in Hampton Roads has a group exactly like it. Hampton has an internal review committee without citizens. In Virginia Beach, an independent citizen review board looks over all internal affairs investigations, including uses of force.
That lack of uniformity within a relatively small region is a national trend, said John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Maria Haberfeld.
“This is part of the problem, not just with use of force, but in general with any type of standard that we would like to see police agencies adhering to,” Haberfeld said.
There is some national consensus on what use of force policies should look like. The International Association of Chiefs of Police published a “National Consensus Policy on Use of Force” in 2017 says transparency helps build trust and improve officers’ performance. But it doesn’t recommend a specific review plan.
There’s also the question of who is qualified to review incidents. Haberfeld said she doesn’t think that, in Newport News’ case, the citizens will have enough experience to make judgments by themselves. Even officers may not, Haberfeld said, because most will use a taser or similar device only a few times at most in their career.
“Going through citizen’s academy doesn’t give you an understanding,” Haberfeld said. “I mean, it gives you an understanding of how police officers are trained, but it doesn’t give you an understanding of how police officers react on the field when faced with danger.”
Drew said showing citizens what incidents look like from an officer’s perspective helps improve trust.
“At times, they may see a citizen resisting, being belligerent, at times even spitting in the face of an officer. At times, they will see an officer that makes an arrest and then says something that may be inappropriate to a citizen,” Drew said.
Drew said that the plan encountered resistance within the department, though he thinks he’s won people over with his rationale. Before, reports were reviewed by the officer’s supervisor and the chief.
“It’s just something new,” he said. “It’s different.”
He also said that there’s been a lot of interest from graduates of the citizen’s police academy and others already, and that the participants in the first iteration of the board in October found it an eye-opening experience.
Anyone interested in the academy can reach out to the Community Programs Division at 757-928-4295, according to the department.
“So far, it’s been overwhelming,” Drew said. “We have even people writing in and saying they would like to be part of the next use of force review board. That to me is a good sign.”
