ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604080052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
AMID ALLEGATIONS of police misconduct, some Roanoke residents are asking for a more active role in supervision of the department. They say a citizen review board is a possible solution.
The atmosphere was polite, but the questioning was tough last month when Roanoke Police Chief M. David Hooper visited a local NAACP meeting.
A small group of people listened as Hooper and Public Safety Director George Snead talked about police recruitment and how to file a complaint.
Then, the hands went up.
There were questions about a Feb. 11 traffic stop on the City Market that grew into a brawl between a black man and seven officers. Why did it take so many officers to subdue one man? How could people trust the findings of an internal investigation that cleared the officers of brutality?
There were criticisms of Hooper's 249-officer force, complaints that police are too aggressive when making arrests, that they treat young black men differently, that they aren't accountable to the public.
"I'm seeing it as a citizen, and I'm on your side," one woman told Hooper. But "every time, a police officer is exonerated with no explanation. There are two sides to every story. ... We're glad you're out here. ... [But we] have a fear, and until you take away that fear ... we need a citizens review board."
It wasn't the only time recently that someone has suggested that residents review complaints about the Police Department. The issue came up during a City Council candidates' forum last month, and a newly formed organization in the black community has talked about the need to openly question police practices.
Those who support the idea say a citizen review board would be busy in Roanoke. Four incidents in the last seven months have been cited as reasons one is needed:
In August, a 19-year-old Southeast Roanoke man died in police custody. He hanged himself with his shoelace in the back of a patrol wagon. The internal police investigation found no wrongdoing. The patrol wagon has since been redesigned.
In October, Maj. Donald Shields, head of the patrol division, wrote a letter to a judge criticizing him for sentencing a man who assaulted a police officer to only 60 days in jail.
Shields wrote that officers might be tempted to mete out "street justice, as in the Rodney King incident," if suspects receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Hooper responded by issuing a statement that said the wording of Shields' letter was inappropriate and that the "street justice" attitude is not tolerated in his department. A black fraternity denounced Shields' remarks.
In the Feb. 11 incident, a routine traffic stop escalated into a struggle between the passenger, Steven Leftwich, and police. Leftwich said he was beaten for no reason. He has not filed an official complaint.
On March 24, a 35-year-old man whom police were trying to arrest during a domestic dispute pointed a rifle at two officers. They fired 12 shots, killing him. His fiancee, who called police for help, now claims the officers used excessive force. But she has not filed an official complaint, either.
In each case, the Police Department reviewed, or is in the process of reviewing, its own actions. Critics say that does not allow residents to fully scrutinize the allegation or the incident, since the reports are not available to the public.
"You want to err on the side of the citizen," said Total Action Against Poverty's Martin Jeffrey, whoasked Hooper about a citizen review panel at last month's NAACP meeting. "If you're intent on making sure there's every opportunity for objectivity in the process - fairness and truth - there should be some built-in mechanism for citizen review."
The idea of establishing a citizen review board has been discussed before. Five years ago, the city's Community Relations Task Force recommended it. But it never happened.
The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police doesn't support citizen review boards, and a 1994 report on police accountability by the Virginia State Crime Commission was skeptical.
"It has worked in certain localities where the panel review process has been tailored to local needs and practices," the report says. "However, there is no conclusive research that supports or disproves the citizen review panel as an appropriate or effective means of checking police disciplinary practices.''
Some say citizen review boards actually make police officials less accountable for officers' actions.
But a report sponsored by the Police Executive Research Forum - a Washington, D.C., organization that represents police chiefs - says citizen review boards are gaining wider acceptance nationally.
The American Civil Liberties Union recommends them in a pamphlet on fighting police abuse.
"It's almost a truism that professionals want to regulate themselves," said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia ACLU. "But the accountability of a police department is an important fabric of any community. ... It's important that citizens keep an eye on the police, and if nothing else ... it's a good source of creating confidence. A good police force has nothing to fear. In fact, they would find their image enhanced."
There are a variety of models for citizen review boards. Some merely advise city officials. Some hear appeals from people dissatisfied with the findings of internal police investigations. And others determine the outcome of cases and have the power to subpoena witnesses.
In Charlottesville - one of about a dozen cities in Virginia with some form of citizen review board - the panel makes recommendations to the police chief after a separate internal police investigation.
The police chief in Dayton, Ohio, views that city's seven-person board as another forum to get at the truth. Witnesses who refuse to talk to police sometimes feel more comfortable talking with the board, said Chief Ronald Lowe.
Hooper sees the idea of citizen review boards differently.
"People think it's utopia," he said. "It's not. It's a monster. ... It has not improved community relations. In fact, it's tended to polarize it.''
The boards have not been proven to better law enforcement, he said.
"The bottom line is that it's not a citizen or the board's responsibility to discipline." That's the job of an officer's superiors and the police chief, he said.
Snead, the public safety director, agrees. A citizen review board looks at isolated incidents instead of looking at police performance as a whole, he said.
"The continuum of quality of [police] service, the information that that provides is the real heart of being accountable to the community," he said. "A citizens review board tends to send police officers the message that there's more separation between them and the citizens they serve."
The Rev. Charles Green, Roanoke NAACP president, acknowledges the Police Department has made strides over the past five years. Its leadership is accessible and concerned, he said.
In 1991, when the NAACP called for more minority officers, the department responded. Where once there were eight minority officers, there now are 31.
Still, minorities make up about 25 percent of the city's population but only about 12 percent of the police force.
The problem in Roanoke is no different than in any other city of similar size, Green said. There is a constant push for a better understanding between police and residents. An independent review panel can only help reach that goal.
"We should have people on a panel to do an investigation, because the whole facts don't bear out when only the police, state police or the commonwealth's attorney are involved," Green said. "They tend to stick together."
Allegations that there is a pattern of misconduct by Roanoke police officers swelled after the Leftwich incident early February 11.
A patrol officer stopped Leftwich's car because it did not have working taillights. The officer asked Leftwich to step out of the car after he saw what he thought was marijuana on the front seat.
Leftwich says that after he got out of the car, the officer and a state trooper, who had stopped to help, began pummeling him. The police account says Leftwich initiated the fight, going after the state trooper and then trying to wrest a gun from the Roanoke officer. Leftwich's cousin, William Hayden III, was driving, but was not involved in the fight.
At least seven officers were involved in subduing Leftwich. He was treated for injuries, as were three officers and the state trooper.
Police charged Leftwich with malicious wounding and assault. An internal police investigation found that the officers did not use excessive force.
The newly formed Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference took up Leftwich's cause, alleging police brutality.
Leftwich's lawyer, Harold Barnes of Norfolk, said he has filed a complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. He said he is conducting his own investigation, too.
Leftwich appears to be an example of a problem that crosses racial boundaries, he said.
"I feel there is a perception by the public that the department is not being run in the way it should be," Barnes said. "The perception is that there are way too many claims of excessive force involving those who don't have [weapons]. ... People are in fear the same thing could happen to them."
Recently, Barnes helped organize the Roanoke Legal Defense Fund, an organization that is based in the black community but hopes to gain valleywide support. While the group expects to attack such issues as housing and employment, its priority is to study the issue of alleged police abuse in the Roanoke Valley, more specifically in the city.
Over the past six years, excessive force complaints filed with the Roanoke Police Department have increased.
Hooper attributes some of that to the 1991 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. According to the Police Department, excessive force complaints filed in 1992 more than doubled from the previous year.
And, Hooper said, people are better informed now about how to file complaints.
The majority of complaints result from officers' making arrests, Hooper said. There are few complaints alleging beatings.
Since 1991, only one officer has been fired as a result of a complaint. Hooper would not detail that incident or when it happened. The complaint was initiated by the officer's supervisor, not by a resident, he said.
When confronted with the accusation that the department is too aggressive, Hooper counters with the findings of monthly surveys of residents.
The survey is sent each year to about 360 residents who have had direct contact with police officers. About a third of the surveys are returned. Residents consistently give an overall satisfaction rating of "good."
"If I based our image on the people we serve ... I think that the citizen level of satisfaction is good to, at times, very good," Hooper said. "I can't remember a time when I'd classify it as poor since we've been doing the survey," which began in 1993.
Those who are asking for residents to be part of the process are not critical of the Police Department as a whole. They point to the Community Oriented Policing Effort - which patrols the city's public housing developments and has since expanded to other areas - as a tangible sign that the Police Department wants to foster change and nurture a stronger relationship with residents.
The newly re-established Community Relations Task Force also will be a forum for residents. City Manager Bob Herbert said the impact of Shields' "street justice" letter will be one of several issues brought to the 21-member committee.
LENGTH: Long : 202 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Hooper. color. Graphic: Chart by staff:by CNBExcessive force complaints.