With severe limitations on its investigatory powers, the city's new police review board may fall short of expectations.

by Joe Tarr

When Mayor Victor Ashe created the Police Advisory and Review Committee last month, it seemed like a victory for the citizens and activists who had lobbied for months for added police oversight.

But the committee, known as PARC, lacks the power and muscle to be a truly independent review of the police force, local and national experts and activists say. They say the board is tied too closely to the city and police administrations, is restricted in what it can look at, lacks a representation of marginalized communities, and may not tackle larger policing issues such as hiring, training, and police tactics.

Still, everyone interviewed says they're glad PARC at least exists. And it does have some good things—primarily, a full-time, paid executive director and the power to subpoena witnesses. But it may not be enough to re-establish faith in the police force and prevent abuse.

"It's obviously a compromise, a serious compromise, between independence and what I'll call allegiance to the mayor and the police department," says University of Tennessee law professor Neil Cohen, who has studied police review boards. "It cuts the baby in half."

The defects are found in the finer points of PARC's structure. One of the biggest criticisms is that its hands are tied in what and when it can investigate.

The group cannot look at any case until KPD's Internal Affairs has completed its investigation, giving the police department the power to keep an investigation open indefinitely and out of PARC's hands, say both Cohen and Margaret Held, an attorney who was a consultant for the activist group Citizens for Police Review. Similarly, PARC cannot investigate if the case is being reviewed by the Civil Service Merit Board.

"I think they should be able to initiate an investigation when they damn well think they should initiate an investigation," Held says. "That's a pretty substantial limit on their power."

Mark Gissiner, president of the Cincinnati-based International Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, says the waiting period also puts PARC at a disadvantage if it eventually does investigate, because it will be tougher to gather evidence.

"The trail gets cold. The police start drawing their conclusions and deciding how they're going to support their theory. Your committee is going to be presented with evidence that is going to be favorable to whatever [the police department's] conclusion is," says Gissiner, who, while working for the City of Cincinnati, investigated about 100 cases where police fired weapons.

"You hope the people in charge of Internal [Affairs] act with integrity, but there's no safeguard if they mess around," he adds.

PARC also cannot look at any case where litigation is pending, which often happens in serious incidents. Ironically, PARC would probably not have been able to investigate the Andre Stenson, James Woodfin, or Juan Daniels cases—three separate incidents where black men died while being apprehended by white KPD officers—since lawsuits are pending in all three cases. It was these cases that fueled demands for a review board.

Gissiner wonders whether this provision was a subtle move to keep people from complaining. "What you're saying is you can either file a complaint or you can sue. You can't do both. I think that's bad practice."

PARC is structured so that it if it feels Internal Affairs did not do a complete investigation, it tells the police chief to investigate further. PARC initiates its own investigation only if the chief refuses.

The Bernstein Commission—which formed to the study the issue, and on whose recommendations the mayor based PARC—did not call for those limitations. However, commission Chairman Bernard Bernstein calls the differences "more style than substance."

Mayor Ashe says the limitations are there to avoid having several investigations going on at once. And, he says, a complainant can always sue after PARC has reviewed the case.

"Once [a complaint] is in the court system, it has a life of its own. If it's in the court system, the city is probably a defendant," Ashe says. "The court system has far greater power to get at the truth than this [committee]."

Another recurring criticism of PARC is who is on it—or who isn't. No one has questioned the integrity or the dedication of the seven people the mayor appointed. But missing is anyone who could speak for common folk, or who would know what it's like to be the victim of police abuse, critics say.

"It is racially diverse, but if I were a member of a minority community of Knoxville...I would be concerned about the lack of community folk on that board," Cohen says. "These are solid people. But there is no community person, which is something that should have happened."

There are two lawyers, two ministers, a retired FBI agent, a school teacher and the University of Tennessee president. There are two black men, a black woman, a white woman and three white men. None of the members lives in a predominantly poor or black neighborhood.

"If you're going to put a retired FBI agent on there, it's also good to put someone who has had a substantiated complaint of abuse. That would give more of a sense of fairness," Held says.

Originally an accountant, Sterling Owen IV became an FBI agent in 1972. He worked in the Knoxville office from 1981 until 1995, when he retired. During that time, he investigated white collar and drug crimes.

He also investigated alleged hate crimes and Civil Rights abuses, which included cases of police misconduct. Of these, he says, there were incidents where police were found guilty, but adds, "Frankly, more often than not the investigations found the facts to be different than the allegations."

The Rev. Reginald Butler, a PARC member, says he nominated Owen as PARC chairman because his investigative background would aid Executive Director Carol Scott.

"It's certainly not my objective to be partial to anybody. I didn't request this position. I certainly didn't ask to be chairman," Owen says. "It's very easy and the American way to criticize whatever is happening. I can only tell you, we just want to be fair to everyone."

Ashe disagrees that there is no one on PARC to represent the average person. He points to Kamau Kenyatta, a black Carter Middle School teacher who also served on the Bernstein Commission. "If he's part of the establishment, what establishment is it?"

Samuel Walker, a professor at the University of Nebraska who has studied review boards across the country, says it's unclear what PARC's role is. The more issues and problems the group can examine, the more effective they'll be, he says. But this isn't specified in the executive order. "You've got to move beyond just the individual complaints."

The Bernstein Commission recommended that PARC examine a wide variety of things, including the selection and retention of officers, community relations training, and ongoing psychological evaluation and counseling of officers.

However, Owen says that while it's unclear yet how PARC will spend its energy, he doubts it will be evaluating KPD policies and operating procedures. "It's not our objective to review all of the orders of the police department. We are not trained to do that," he says.

Gene Patterson, Knoxville's deputy mayor, says the evaluation of department policies will likely happen as they relate to individual complaints. The police chief may also ask PARC for advice.

Despite these criticisms, it would be a stretch to say that people here are opposed to it. Even the skeptics are willing to give it a chance.

"I like that we have PARC. I like that such an organization exists," says Held. "It's several steps in a positive direction from where we were before."

While Gissiner doubts PARC will work well, he agrees that it's at least a start.

"If I was police chief, I would be very happy with this model," says Gissiner. "But I think in the long run you're going to find the community is not happy with it. It's going to be too close to business as usual."