This story has been updated.
Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board plans to seek independent legal representation while lamenting a contentious relationship with city officials.
The board unanimously voted to start the process of hiring independent counsel during its virtual meeting Thursday.
Mayor Nikuyah Walker has been critical of the proposal, telling the board that outside counsel only makes sense in terms of use-of-force or other incidents in which City Attorney John Blair would be defending an officer.
“I did not imagine that we would spend hundreds of dollars per hour to have an attorney answer the types of questions that Mr. Blair has been asked during the past two weeks,” she wrote in an email to the board in July. “I would not vote yes to expanding the budget to allow such a request when we have so many unfulfilled needs in the City. It seems wasteful to me.”
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It’s unclear when counsel would be hired or how much it might cost.
The vote came shortly after board members vented frustrations about what they say is City Council’s effort to hamstring their work.
Board members have butted heads with city officials in the past few months as the CRB tries to maintain its independence from the city government and boost its power.
Board members and activists were outraged when the CRB was not allowed to participate in the City Council’s virtual listening session on policing earlier this month. Councilors said the meeting was called primarily in response to calls to defund the police department and served as the first opportunity for the council to get a broader understanding of the community’s demands.
CRB member James Watson said that not being invited to the policing session wasn’t “very inspiring.”
“Anything policing, we should be involved,” he said.
Board member Dorenda Johnson said she was “quite disgruntled” about not being part of the session and wanted the council to publicly indicate its level of support for the panel.
“I want a straight and direct answer — just tell me,” she said. “At the end of the day, I don’t think any of us have the time to just be sitting on a board or being a member of a board and not making the difference you signed on to make.”
At its first meeting, the board voted to request that the City Council revert its bylaws and ordinance to the structure presented by an initial CRB.
However, the council has indicated that it will not take any action on the matter before the General Assembly’s special session on policing, which is scheduled to start Tuesday.
“This talk of patience makes me want to pull my hair out,” board member Stuart Evans said. “It’s been three years since people pushed for the CRB.”
Evans said “it’s pretty clear” that the council doesn’t support the board.
“They want to have this veneer of progressiveness by having us exist, but they’ll only do what they want to do,” he said. “I don’t want to be a volunteer member of the city bureaucracy.”
Evans said that Walker’s conduct and communication with the board has at times been “insulting;” city officials have ended their meetings early; and the council hasn’t explained why it departed from the initial CRB’s proposal.
Several board members indicated that they have been considering resigning because the city isn’t being responsive.
“There have been rumors about us jumping ship, and I think we’ve all considered it because we don’t want to waste our time,” Watson said.
Board member Bill Mendez said that “it’s frustrating,” but that he didn’t take the exclusion from the listening session personally.
Board members didn’t resign en masse during the meeting, but made it clear they don’t want to wait to conduct meaningful work.
“I want to make a difference. I want to help. I got on here because I am anxious and I want to help,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, I’m a little older now and my patience is not what it used to be.”
The board also voted to ask the Charlottesville Police Department for a set of information, including a complete inventory of all items; a zero-based budget for fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021; how CPD tracks its officers’ during their shifts; documents used in the fiscal 2021 budget process; information on vandalism in parks or armed “guards” of parks; and information on reports of harassment on the Downtown Mall.
The board also voted, 3-2, to send a draft job description for an executive director to the city manager’s office. Evans and board member Nancy Carpenter voted against it, saying it would be ineffective under the board’s current structure.
In other business, the board met with Dels. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, and Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, and Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, to discuss upcoming legislation related to policing.
The Legislative Black Caucus has proposed several measures on police accountability, which the City Council supported in a resolution last month.
“There’s a growing loss of faith in many communities in the ability to hold police accountable if they do anything wrong,” McClellan said.
The proposals would allow localities to establish civilian review boards with subpoena power. Subpoena power was not included in the original or current iteration of the Charlottesville CRB’s bylaws.
The legislation also would limit the use of sovereign immunity, a state and federal law that shields individual police officers and their governing bodies from civil liability for violations of constitutional rights.
“Qualified immunity has kept a lot of bad law enforcement from prosecution,” Scott said.
Scott said the legislation also would allow people to sue local governments for hiring officers who had been decertified or had a history of misconduct, forcing accountability “across the board.” It also would prohibit the hiring of officers who resigned during an investigation into use of force.
McClellan said other legislation includes eliminating chokeholds, no-knock warrants and mandatory minimums. Chokeholds have been criticized as a law enforcement tactic since the death of Eric Garner in New York in 2014. No-knock warrants have been a rallying cry in protests since Louisville, Kentucky, officers mistakenly shot Breonna Taylor in her bed earlier this year.
Another piece of legislation would endorse the Marcus Alert, which has already gained traction on the local level in Richmond.
The alert is named for Marcus-David Peters, a Black school teacher who was killed by Richmond police in 2018 while he was experiencing a mental health crisis. Peters threatened to kill the officer and charged him before he was shot.
The alert would require mental health professionals to be the first responders to a mental health crisis, with police serving as backup to secure the scene.
“We don’t want to pass laws just for the sake of passing laws,” Bagby said. “This legislation that we’re moving forward is actually saving lives.”
If any of the legislation is approved, it’s unclear when it would take effect. State code sets the effective date for four months after the end of the session, but a final date hasn’t been established.
“Worst-case scenario, you will have enabling legislation that authorizes what you’re already doing. But we’re going to do more,” McClellan said. “If we can’t get as much as we’re trying to get in the special session, we’re going to come right back in January and push for more.”