This November, Long Beach voters will decide whether to make changes to the city’s citizen-led police oversight body. The proposed charter amendment would add an auditor to analyze trends and internal policies of the police department, while removing citizen review of individual police complaints.
On Tuesday, the Long Beach City Council was divided in its support for the ballot item. On one side, council members believed that residents were ready to see substantial changes to the Citizen Police Complaint Commission, and that the auditor model would solve issues of transparency and independence in police oversight.
Councilmember Al Austin, former chair of the CPCC, led the opposition. He said that the policy shouldn’t go to the ballot without being strengthened, and that there was more to be done to enhance the current CPCC before throwing it out for a new model. He expressed concern that voters would pass the reform measure because they support oversight.
“There are those on this council who are enthusiastic about making change and getting something done,” Austin said. “I want to get something done, but I want it to be done right.”
Mayor Robert Garcia said the city could stick with a model that hasn’t worked “or we can actually try to make some reforms and create a system that is more accountable, which I believe the public is demanding in protests and letters, and asking us to do more in this area,” adding that he made personal commitments to community members to look at CPCC reforms.
The proposed model: a powerful auditor focused on the system as a whole, not investigating individual cases
In September 2020, the city council began to explore alternative models to the CPCC. Consultant Polis-Change Integration was hired to conduct a study of feasible alternatives, which were presented to the council in February.
The consultant suggested a hybrid model: a powerful independent auditor with the ability to study overarching trends, police policies and complaints against upper management within the police department, and a seven-member commission tasked with communicating with the public and advising the auditor on topics of resident concern.
The auditor would focus on systematic reviews of police operations, policies, procedures and training. They’d also have the authority to review internal affairs investigations—the police department’s own review of complaints against officers.
They would have full access to police department records, reports, personnel and witnesses, according to city staff, something that the current commission does not have access to. The auditor would report to the city council and be “independent from the city manager’s office,” staff said.
The auditor could also investigate individual officer-involved shootings or complaints against the chief of police or command staff, but only by request of the city manager—a feature that was criticized as a lack of auditor independence.
“What I’ve heard generally, over the years, is that the city manager did not act when there was an expectation that the city manager would act,” Councilmember Daryl Supernaw said. “I see the flaw here that we would be back to square one possibly, but we’ll have spent a lot more money for the process.”
The new model is expected to cost over $1 million.
City staff called the model a “stronger, superior, and modern approach to police oversight.” Hybrid models have been adopted in Anaheim, Fresno, Oakland and Sacramento.
How the current Citizen Police Complaint Commission works
The Citizen Police Complaint Commission was created in 1990 by a charter amendment approved by voters.
The commission reviews video footage and other evidence of police complaint incidents and makes findings on whether the officers involved should be disciplined, trained or exonerated.
They cannot enforce their findings. Rather, their recommendations are sent to the city manager, who can overturn their decisions—a main criticism of the CPCC’s lack of power.
Even under the new auditor model, the auditor would not be able to direct police to change their policies. They can only make recommendations.
Most criticisms of the current CPCC model have to do with power: they can’t interview the officers involved in incidents, they don’t have access to all the evidence in a case, they don’t have any information on how many times an officer has been the subject of complaints and, until recently, the commission didn’t know it had subpoena power, according to Austin.
In addition to these limitations, the commission lacks adequate funding, Austin said. The commission is chronically behind on its mandated annual reports; the last year that was fully reported was 2019.
In a July 2020 interview with the Signal Tribune, CPCC Manager Patrick Weithers said that, at one point, he was “literally the only investigator for quite a few months.”
Austin said, during the first few decades after its inception, the commission was run by directors with law enforcement backgrounds. It was only in the past decade, he said, that a civilian was given the position. During that time, he said, the commissions’ staffing was “significantly reduced.”
Austin opposed the new model in favor of strengthening the CPCC with staffing and continuing to study the auditor model to strengthen it before putting it towards a vote.
Former CPCC commissioners blast current commission, question whether new model is an improvement
During public comment, former CPCC commissioner David Clement said that the new model would “weaken the CPCC rather than strengthen the commission.”
Former CPCC Commissioner Richard Lindemann said the CPCC has “been pretty much a fraudulent commission since its inception,” since the city manager could always overturn its findings.
“It should go to an actual election and be a real independent organization, because the CPCC is not and this derivation of it is not, again,” Lindemann said.
Beachcomber reporter Stephen Downing, a former police chief who writes about police oversight, said the proposed plan “works for the Police Officers Association, it works for City Hall, but it doesn’t work for the people.”
“The proposed charter amendment guts every possibility that the people in this city ever had for true civilian oversight of the police,” Downing said.
He said the current CPCC could have been improved, “but clearly even that, if made to work by eliminating the false barriers that have traditionally been put up to ensure that it did not work—like interview of officers, interviewing witness officers—obviously pose too great a danger to city hall image-makers.”
Behind the rail, most city council members seemed satisfied with the new model. When Austin proposed holding off on the ballot measure—to strengthen the CPCC by funding investigators and staff, while also studying the auditor model to give it “teeth”—a majority of council members opposed the motion.
Councilmembers Mary Zendejas, Cindy Allen, Suzie Price, Roberto Uranga, former CPCC chair Suely Saro and Vice Mayor Rex Richardson voted in favor of moving the item to the ballot.
“I don’t want to pass this discussion to a future council,” Richardson said. “I won’t be a part of that council.”
He applauded the increased public reporting in the proposed auditor model, as well as the focus on why something happened rather than what happened.
Garcia said he was “not concerned with the cost” of making sure that “people feel that their law enforcement is accountable to the public.”
Austin replied saying that Garcia had “14 years to care about funding the CPCC and civilian oversight.”
“We could’ve put a lot of resources into the existing model we have to build that public confidence, to build public trust, to ingratiate that commission with voters and residents in the city,” Austin said. “We failed. As a collective body, we’ve failed in that regard. And we need to eat it.”
Only Councilmembers Daryl Supernaw and Stacy Mungo voted in favor of Austin’s motion.
“This is a Titanic turning decision. I am just disappointed in the staff that this is happening at the eleventh hour,” Mungo said. “Because I feel like the items being brought forward have put us in the council in a really tight spot, of a hope that the city brings back alternatives that are better, which I know there are some, or a ‘accept this and put it towards the voters.’”
After Austin’s motion failed, the council unanimously passed a motion to send the item to the ballot. The item will appear before the voters on Nov. 3, 2022.
