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• 2007 Annual Report (12kb PDF) • 2006 Annual Report (13kb PDF) • 2005 Annual Report • 2004 Annual Report March 17, 2006 The Honorable Robert Walkup 2005 Annual Report for Citizens Police Advisory Review Board(CPARB) As in previous years, CPARB continues to fulfill its goal of "promoting
public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the Tucson Police
Department's investigation of citizen complaints by opening such The Board continues to review closed citizen complaints filed against the Tucson Police Department alleging police misconduct. CPARB reviews closed complaints at the request of citizen complainants and also reviews randomly chosen cases. Feedback is submitted to TPD in each case for their consideration. Some of the feedback has resulted in changes in the way TPD conducts business such as more succinct reporting , more thorough investigating and better communication. CPARB continues to enjoy a positive working relationship with both TPD and the Independent Police Auditor (IPA). Both the IPA and TPD
cooperate with CPARB WITH requests, information, presentations, etc.
Cases are no longer redacted and although CPARB cannot comment on the CPARB. CPARB lost two valuable members in 2005; Suzanne Elefante and Elizabeth Bottka-Smith both served the full eight years allowed. Advisory Board Member Sue Thornton was appointed to replace Ms. Elefante by the
Mayor's Office and Tom Clark was appointed by Council Member Carol We will also miss CPARB members Holli McGarry and Wiiliam Wills who were not reappointed after the November elections in Ward 5 and 6 respectively. CPARB's advisory board is full with four members at this time, three were newly selected in 2005, Daniel Knieter, Bruce Cameron and Ronald Peetz. All new board members and advisory board members attended the Citizens' Police Academy. Barry Hirsch's term will be up in March and we will be seeking another advisory board member. The Customer Satisfaction Survey was mailed to all citizens who filed a complaint with TPD for the entire year. Completed forms were returned to CPARB. The survey subcommittee met to review the forms and was able to extract valuable information and statistics from these forms. Information was shared with Internal Affairs and changes were made accordingly. The major complaint seemed to be lack of communication. Internal Affairs has begun addressing the problem in earnest. Two complaints were filed directly with CPARB in 2005, both of which CPARB followed from beginning to end and both of which were sustained against the officers involved. CPARB had presentations from all divisions this year, giving us a better understanding of the special needs of each division. The Tucson Police Department put on several presentations pertaining to a variety of subjects, including tasers, methamphetimine problems, etc. Chair Hart met with Chief Richard Miranda on a Quarterly basis to discuss progress, problems and changes. CPARB's website went online in January 2005, the address is www.tucsonaz.gov/cparb. Citizens can now communicate directly with the board. CPARB information, agendas, reports, biographies of board members, etc. are available on the site. Citizens may also submit complaints through the web site. CPARB's training day on April 30, 2005 was a success. Most importantly, CPARB was given a lengthy presentation on the Discipline Matrix that was to be employed by TPD. Our input was invited and used for the final Discipline Matrix. City staff that helps CPARB had many turnovers in 2005, making For the first time no one from CPARB attended the 2005 annual National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) Conference. Funds to send a member from CPARB were not found this year. It was a huge disappointment and unfortunate that CPARB was not able to send anyone to this extremely important conference. Looking ahead: CPARB currently has two vacancies on the Board caused by the recent
elections. Council Member Nina Trasoff, Ward 6 and Council Member Steve Leal, Ward 5 are both looking for possible candidates. Chair Vicki Hart was reappointed by Council Member Karin Uhlich, Ward 3. Ward 1 CPARB hopes to revamp the Customer Survey that has been halted for now. All information gathered will be analyzed and presented at a future meeting. As in the past, CPARB continues to try to reach the public with information about CPARB and hopes to serve more individuals in 2006. CPARB would like to reexamine the expansion of its role in light of the new discipline process and explore expanding our function to include
internal complaints. We invite Mayor and Council to attend any, or all of our monthly meetings held the third Tuesday of each month in the lower level of the downtown library at 5:30 p.m. CPARB continues to serve a very important role in the
community.
Though we are volunteers, we take our work very seriously. We
appreciate the support of the Mayor, the Council, the Independent Sincerely
Vicki Hart cc.Michael Hein , City Manager March 28, 2005 The Honorable Robert Walkup and City Council Members City of Tucson P.O. Box 27210 Tucson, Arizona 85726 2004 Annual Report for Citizen Police Advisory Review Board (CPARB): CPARB continues to fulfill its goal of "promoting public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the Tucson Police Department’s investigation of citizen complaints by opening such investigations to public review and comment." The Board continues to review closed citizen complaints filed against the Tucson Police Department alleging police misconduct. CPARB reviews closed complaints at the request of citizen complainants and also reviews randomly chosen cases. Feedback is submitted to TPD in each case for their consideration. CPARB continues to enjoy a positive working relationship with both TPD and the Independent Police Auditor (IPA). Both the IPA and TPD cooperate with CPARB with requests, information, presentations, etc. We currently have a full board of diverse citizens serving on the board. The Ward 1 representative, Ida Wilber, was appointed Chief Judge of the Ak Chin Tribe in November and was replaced by one of our advisory board members. Another advisory board member resigned in December leaving us with two advisory positions to fill. In 2004 three major complaints were submitted by citizens for CPARB’s review. In all three cases, the Board’s review process was lengthy and thorough. In all three cases the complainants requested to speak to the Board. After reviewing these cases the Board wrote a letter to Chief Miranda detailing several important issues and recommended that TPD make changes in specific areas. As a result, TPD instituted changes that will positively impact on better serving citizen complainants. TPD changed the verbiage in internal affairs reports to reflect the Board’s recommendation to change the phrase "does not rise to the level of a complaint", as CPARB felt it was dismissive. TPD now uses, "Nothing that has been alleged or described amounts to a violation of law or Tucson Police Department General Orders, policies, or...". CPARB also recommended the practice of placing "unknown" in the officer field of Internal Affairs database be stopped in cases where the identity of the officer is known. The field will now read "In File" and the name of the officer will be contained in the narrative portion of the OIA database. CPARB worked diligently with the City’s Information Technology (IT) Department to create a web site for CPARB (it went online in January 2005). The address is www.tucsonaz.gov/cparb. Citizens can now communicate directly with the Board. CPARB information, agendas, reports, etc. are available on the site. Citizens may also submit complaints through the web site. A subcommittee reviewed its complaint review process in 2004 and revised and updated it in October. A Customer Satisfaction Survey is now mailed to all citizens who have filed a complaint with TPD. Completed forms are returned to CPARB. A subcommittee reviews the forms and is hoping to extract meaningful information and statistics from these forms. CPARB continues to have issues with the City Clerk’s Office as far as information not being supplied in a timely manner and preparation and distribution of documents. We continue to work with the City Clerk’s Office to resolve these issues. The Chairperson of CPARB attended the 2004 Annual National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) Conference in Chicago. TPD once again made this possible due to its commitment to civilian oversight. Also attending were a TPD Internal Affairs Captain, the Independent Police Auditor and two of her staff. In light of all the problems discussed by other communities throughout the nation, Tucson has reason to be proud of its efforts to see that complaints against TPD officers are handled fairly and thoroughly and that there is cooperation amongst all parties involved in reviewing cases. Looking ahead: CPARB will be losing two of its original board members in 2005. This will be huge loss as Ms. Elefante and Ms. Bottka -Smith have been invaluable in the growth and very fiber of CPARB. We will be looking for two members to replace them and we also have two vacancies on the Advisory Board. CPARB hopes to be trained in, and advised about, the new changes in the disciplinary process at TPD at its Annual Training Day on April 30, 2005. As in the past, CPARB continues to try to reach the public with information about CPARB and hopes to serve more individuals in 2005. CPARB would like to reexamine the expansion of its role in light of the new discipline process and possibly expand our function to include internal complaints. Once again, CPARB hopes to send two members to the 2005 NACOLE Conference and requests funding help from Mayor and Council. We invite Mayor and Council to attend any, or all, of our monthly meetings held the third Tuesday of every month in the basement of the downtown library at 5:30 p.m. CPARB continues to serve a very important role in the community. Though we are volunteers, we take our work very seriously. We appreciate the support of the Mayor, the Council, the Independent Police Auditor, and the Tucson Police Department.
cc: Michael D. Letcher, City Manager Chief Richard Miranda, TPD Captain Carla Johnson, TPD Lieutenant James McShea, TPD Liana Perez, IPA Michael Anderson, Senior Assistant City Attorney CPARB Board Members CPARB Advisory Board Members CPARB Ex-Officio Members |
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