Ralph White – Memphis Flyer

Right around the same time last week that Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich was announcing that a Memphis Police officer would not be criminally charged for shooting an unarmed black man, the Memphis City Council was taking up a vote on how much power a civilian board would have to investigate complaints of police misconduct.

While Connor Schilling, the officer who shot Darrius Stewart, got off without state charges, the council voted in favor of giving the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) more teeth to investigate complaints.

CLERB, which has been in place since 1994 but inactive since 2011, investigates complaints of force, verbal abuse, harassment, arrest, illegal search or entry, intimidation, improper firearm use, or other issues with police.

Perhaps the biggest change for CLERB came in giving the board indirect subpoena power. The board was previously unable to require that police officers involved in a case appear before the board. They also could not require the city to hand over documents pertaining to a case.

But the up-to-date CLERB ordinance gives the board the ability to subpoena officers and documents through a Memphis City Council liaison. Originally, when citizen group Memphis United began proposing the city give CLERB more power, they’d asked for the council to give the board the ability to directly subpoena officers and documents without going through a liaison. But council attorney Allan Wade said such a change would require a citywide referendum.

“What we have instead is the next best thing,” said Paul Garner, organizer for Memphis United. “The council will subpoena requested documents and records on behalf of the review board. If that’s the closest thing we can get without a referendum, we’ll take that over them not being able to issue subpoenas.”

The Rev. Ralph White of Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church has served as the chair of CLERB since before it became inactive in 2011, and he said the subpoena power makes CLERB’s job much easier.

“[Before], we were not able to have contact or dialogue with the police officers who had been charged with offenses, so it was a little difficult for us to adequately represent those complaints,” White said.

The CLERB ordinance also allows for the hiring of an investigator and an administrator to oversee investigations into alleged police misconduct. Since CLERB is an all-volunteer board, its previous incarnation was unable to put enough time into investigations.

“The board members often have other responsibilities beyond the board, so having a dedicated staff is critical,” Garner said.

CLERB works somewhat like an appeals board, White said. First, a complainant must file a report with the Memphis Police Department’s Internal Affairs division. Internal Affairs has 45 days to complete the their investigation, another new addition to the CLERB ordinance. Previously, Internal Affairs cases could take much longer to complete.

“If the complainant isn’t satisfied [with Internal Affairs], they can come to us. We can take the information they have and allow our investigator to go through and make his or her decision and compare that to what’s already out there,” White said.

Once CLERB reaches a conclusion, the board can make a recommendation for a disciplinary action to the police director, but it’s up to the director whether or not the action will be enforced.

The CLERB ordinance passed in council with a 9-2 vote, with only councilmen Reid Hedgepeth and Kemp Conrad voting against it. Conrad said he didn’t have a problem with the idea of CLERB, but he felt that the group pushing for the changes — Memphis United — was anti-police. Memphis United has organized peaceful protests against police violence and supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I and others were concerned that the CLERB board allowed these openly anti-police people to hijack the whole communications process,” Conrad said. “What if those people have influence or end up on the [CLERB] board?”

But White said it’s never been the goal of CLERB to “bash police officers.” He said, in some cases where the board finds proof of police misconduct, they’ll suggest more training or a desk position over termination.

“The majority of the time, when we have investigated cases [on the old board], the citizens were found at fault. Often, things happen because citizens were ignorant of the law,” White said. “We’re going to educate citizens on what their rights are and what rights they do not have.

“Many times, when [police] are doing their jobs, they don’t know if a traffic stop will be their last action on this earth. We’re not just there to get the police. Most police are men and women who love our community, and some of them might be bad apples, just like you’ve got in every occupation.”

The Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB), the independent board that investigates complaints about police officers, was reinstated last June after years of being inactive. But an audit of the board by the Memphis United Coalition found that the board hasn’t reviewed a single case since then.

Part of the reason for the inactivity of the board is its lack of power, according to CLERB Chairman Rev. Ralph White. Now Memphis United has drawn up a list of demands for how CLERB should be operated and what sort of power it should have.

The group addressed those demands in the public comment period of last week’s Memphis City Council meeting, and they plan to work with council members soon to draft a full ordinance increasing CLERB’s power.

“An audit revealed several systemic flaws that limited the ability of the board to function efficiently,” said Paul Garner of Memphis United. “That includes CLERB not having the power to subpoena records or the power to require cooperation of witnesses from the Memphis Police Department.”

Saniphoto | Dreamstime.com

When a civilian has a complaint about excessive use of force by a police officer, illegal search, police harassment, poor customer service by police, property damage by police, or police following incorrect procedures, they’re supposed to first file a complaint with the Memphis Police Department’s (MPD) Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). If they’re unhappy with the bureau’s findings, they can then appeal their complaint to CLERB.

Memphis United is suggesting that the Memphis City Council give CLERB subpoena power to gain access to police witnesses and documents, the ability to make policy recommendations to the MPD, the ability to investigate complaints concurrently with the IAB, and enough funding to conduct independent investigations into complaints of police misconduct.

“We had a private investigator at one time, and they cut that from the budget,” said White, who served on the last incarnation of the board as well.

CLERB was established in 1994 after 68-year-old Jesse Bogand was shot by police in Orange Mound. At the time, the board was intended to investigate, hear cases, and recommend action on findings of police misconduct. But since police officers were not required to cooperate and because the board didn’t have the power to subpoena documents, CLERB lacked teeth.

The board was eventually dismantled, but it was reinstated in 2014 after a few volunteers at the Manna House, a gathering place for the city’s homeless, attempted to appeal a complaint to CLERB, only to find the board had been inactive for years. The Memphis City Council voted to appoint new members to the board in June 2014, and they also voted to allow Memphis United to host public forums to gain input on how to improve the board.

White said the new board hasn’t heard cases yet because they simply don’t have much power. They’re hoping the council adopts the suggestions of Memphis United.

“We want to make sure we put some of those suggestions in place before we start hearing cases,” White said. “Right now, we simply don’t have enough power on the board to get police officers to come to hearings. We do need a bit more power and authority.”

White said, although the board wants more power, they also want the MPD to know that they’re not in place to oppose the lawful work of the department.

“We want to make sure they understand that we’re not working against them,” White said. “We just want to make sure we have a functional police department that is working for the betterment of the people.”