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San Francisco Chronicle
16 September 2006

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Police review boards' quandary

A recent state Supreme Court ruling has brought at least a temporary halt to public police-misconduct proceedings in San Francisco and Oakland while those cities determine whether the decision prevents them from naming accused officers or detailing the charges against them.

Officials in the two cities have put cases on hold while they determine whether the public and media still have the right to know the specifics of charges and attend disciplinary hearings. Police unions say such details are personnel matters and should remain private, along with the officers' names. Citizen monitor groups insist that the public has the right to know when police are accused of misconduct.

The questions were raised by a Supreme Court ruling Aug. 31 siding with a fired San Diego County sheriff's deputy who sought to keep details of his termination appeal confidential. The court said state law requires police personnel records to be kept private by an officer's "employing agency," which included a commission hearing an officer's appeal.

The ruling did not deal directly with the issue of citizen police-review panels such as the ones that have long heard disciplinary cases in Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley. It also did not address whether disciplinary hearings themselves must remain closed.

However, Oakland's Citizens' Police Review Board and San Francisco's Police Commission have each postponed public hearings on misconduct charges since the court handed down the ruling. Among the hearings that may be in limbo is the San Francisco case against seven police supervisors and officers accused of mishandling the investigation into the 2002 incident in which three off-duty officers were accused of assaulting two civilians in a brawl that started over takeout steak fajitas.

Oakland's panel pulled a disciplinary case off an agenda this week after the city's police officers union threatened to sue, City Attorney John Russo said.

"We're not sure to what extent the Citizens' Police Review Board will operate," Russo said. "This decision is problematic for citizen review."

San Francisco's Police Commission, which has had the power to meet in open session to fire or suspend officers since 1991, took up the Supreme Court ruling at its meeting Wednesday but made no decision on how to proceed.

Cases against at least two officers charged with misconduct have been withheld from the commission's agenda since the court issued its decision, and their names have not been disclosed. Later this month, the Police Commission is supposed to meet in open session to hear evidence against the seven officers accused in the scandal triggered by the brawl over the fajitas, but the hearing may be delayed or closed.

Karl Olson, an attorney for The Chronicle, argued before the civilian panel that it can still hold disciplinary hearings in public. "The officer can elect to appeal his or her case to the citizen review board, and at that point it becomes public," he said.

Commission President Louise Renne told Olson that she is "a big proponent of open hearings and transparency. But if the state Supreme Court now says citizen review boards can't identify an officer by name, then how are you going to have a public hearing about that officer?"

Like Oakland's police review board, the San Francisco commission does not disclose confidential personnel records. But until the Supreme Court ruling, both cities released charges against officers that included summaries of interviews of parties involved. Those summaries frequently gave details of the allegations against officers.

In Oakland, the review board hears evidence against an accused officer and submits a recommendation to the city manager, who keeps the conclusion of the case confidential. San Francisco's Police Commission appoints a member to hold public hearings and then convenes as a panel to make a final public ruling on what discipline, if any, should be imposed.

Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said review commissions could still hold meetings without divulging the officer's name by using just initials instead.

"The officer deserves a right to privacy, just like anyone else," he said. "It's not right to tarnish their name in public before the outcome of their case has been decided."

Dawn Edwards, director of Bay Area PoliceWatch, a group that monitors allegations of police misconduct, said citizens have a right to know what happens to the officers accused of bad behavior.

"We want those cops held accountable," Edwards said. "This cannot happen if the names of these cops are kept confidential. People have a right to know the names of lawyers who have been disbarred and doctors who have lost their medical licenses -- why not cops who are abusive?"

Rashidah Grinage, executive director of the Oakland police watchdog group People United for a Better Oakland, said police officers "have the power of life and death. The counterbalance to that extraordinary power has to be transparency."

Todd Simonson, a lawyer for the Oakland Police Officers Association, insisted that "this is not the end of civilian review at all. Our position is they need to keep these records confidential just like Oakland Police Department's internal affairs (unit) has to."

Simonson said Oakland and other cities could adopt review procedures followed in San Jose, where the city has an independent monitor and a civilian board that keeps its investigations and recommendations about officer misconduct probes confidential.

"Cops basically have a tough enough job without worrying about their names being made public in these situations," Simonson said. "They already have enemies."

The status of open hearings is also up in the air in Berkeley, where a nine-member Police Review Commission conducts investigations into allegations of officer misconduct and forwards recommendations to the city manager. The city manager then makes disciplinary decisions.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the Berkeley police union asked the city attorney to make the commission's investigation reports confidential and close the inquiries to the public. The city attorney's office has not made a decision on the matter.

The union sued the Police Review Commission in August 2002, seeking to close disciplinary hearings to the public. The suit is still pending.

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San Francisco Chronicle16 September 2006

Police review boards' quandary

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San Francisco Chronicle
16 September 2006