Civilian police oversight: 3 decades of controversy

February-March 1989: Protesters rally against police brutality rally in Minneapolis, citing the recent death of an elderly Black couple in a botched drug raid. There are calls for a civilian review board.

January 1990: City Council votes 9-1 to establish the Civilian Review Authority (CRA). Police Department members protests its creation.

June 1990: A council committee is disrupted by 35 protesters demanding active and retired police officers be kept off the CRA board. A retired police detective is appointed, however.

July 1991: Police have refused to talk to CRA investigators, hampering the authority’s investigations of complaints against police, says Randall Smith, CRA executive director.

July 1992: Smith is fired with little explanation. Three of the board’s seven members have already quit.

January 1994: Police Chief John Laux suspends Lt. Mike Sauro for 20 days for beating a handcuffed college student. The incident cost the city $1 million in a lawsuit. CRA Director Patricia Hughes calls the discipline “unbelievably lenient.”

November 1994: The CRA accuses Laux of backing away from disciplining some officers.

June 1997: City Council votes 7-6 to eliminate the CRA’s executive director position and move the board to the city coordinator’s office.

December 2003: The Star Tribune reports that since its creation, the CRA has averaged 1,000 contacts a year, fewer than 20 percent were heard by the board and only 66 complaints were sustained.

March 2010: The Star Tribune reports that Police Chief Tim Dolan imposed discipline in just four of 24 misconduct cases sustained and forwarded by the CRA.

December 2011: The CRA says it has “no confidence” in Dolan imposing discipline.

September 2012: City Council votes 8-5 to scuttle the CRA and replaces it with a office made up of police and civilians, the Police Conduct Oversight Commission.

August 2013: Of 439 cases involving Minneapolis police misconduct handled by the new commission, none has resulted in discipline of an officer, the Star Tribune reports.

August 2016: The commission releases a study detailing serious problems in the way complaints against officers are handled. “We don’t have any power to give any oversight,” member Adriana Cerrillo says.

June 2020: The Star Tribune reports that each year, hundreds of complaints are filed against police, but only a tiny fraction result in discipline.

September 2020: The commission goes on involuntary hiatus with only three members and four vacancies.

March 2022: Abigail Cerra, oversight commission chair, resigns saying the commission spent most of the time advocating for its existence. The previous chair, Cynthia Jackson, said, “It felt like a farce.”

December 2022: The council passes an ordinance creating the Community Commission on Police Oversight.

November 2023: In its first six months, the new commission handles only two cases among hundreds of complaints, the Star Tribune reports.

February 2024: Alberder Gillespie, director of the Civil Rights Department, which oversees the commission, is fired; John Jefferson, director of the Office of Police Conduct Review, which staffs the commission, leaves.