Citizen Oversight Committee works with police

The committee met with the new police chief for the first time Wednesday.

By Amanda Wysocki

Published April 6, 2009

The Citizen Oversight Committee is working with the Columbia Police Department to develop a plan to have an external review board evaluate how CPD handles complaints.

The committee was formed in June 2007 to examine how the police department handles complaints from people who have dealt with CPD.

The committee is still in the early stages of figuring out what its duties will actually be, said Lt. John White, head of CPD Professional Standards Unit.

"It could take several months to hash out what the board will actually do," White said.

Committee members want to improve communication between the community and the police department.

"We've had poor communications between the police and segments of the community," committee chairman Rex Campbell said. "There have been concerns that the complaints were not handled correctly."

Booth said these types of situations have arisen in the more than 30 years she has either lived or worked in Columbia.

Campbell said the concerns have especially come from minority communities in Columbia, but since CPD instituted its Professional Standards Unit a year ago, these complaints have not been as prevalent.

"What they are doing now is much better than what they were doing three or four years ago," Campbell said.

The Professional Standards Unit handles any sort of internal affairs within the police department, White said.

White said the major problem lies with communication. Since the Professional Standards Unit has been in place, he said the department has increased transparency.

"There is some sort of inherent mistrust that if someone makes a complaint to the police department, it won't be looked into," White said. "It will. We just didn't do a good job of explaining our decisions."

White said the department does not fear the Citizen Oversight Committee and they have had a good working relationship so far.

"It's not adversarial, by any stretch of the imagination," White said. "We're all trying to work for the same ends."

White said he wants citizens to feel they have a professional police department, citizens' complaints are being addressed and the police are not running amok.

White said any sort of place where citizens can discuss their feelings about dealings with the police department is very important.

"It can help bridge misunderstandings between what the citizens feel is necessary and what the police can actually do," White said. "A lot of our complaints are really misunderstandings over the powers of the police and what we can and can't do."

The new police chief Kenneth Burton met with the committee for the first time last Wednesday night in order to nail down a plan on how to work together.

"He is supportive of the committee and also of not needing this," Campbell said. "In that, there would either be no complaints or that they would be handled in a way that the person making the complaint would feel satisfied."

Committee member Diane Booth said she is unsure of how the new chief will work with the committee.

"Like everyone else, he is new to us and we're new to him," Booth said. "It will take some time to get to know each other."