Minneapolis City Council passes controversial overhaul of police oversight process

In a marathon session Tuesday dealing with just a single agenda item — police oversight — the Minneapolis City Council approved a new ordinance that will revamp the way city officials handle complaints filed against officers by members of the public.

"Is it perfect, can it be improved? Absolutely, as is everything in life," said Council President Andrea Jenkins, who introduced the ordinance, which was largely drafted by the city's Civil Rights Department office and the city attorney's office.

But Jenkins called the ordinance "a truly good faith effort," adding that there would be "further opportunities to shape this as we go along."

Council members critical of aspects of the new ordinance pushed through several amendments which Jenkins said strengthened it. But the same critics lost on several key proposals before the council voted 7-4 to approve the final version. Two council members left the meeting early and did not vote.

The new ordinance creates a Community Commission on Police Oversight, comprising 15 members who will serve, on a rotating basis, on review panels of five — three civilians and two sworn members of the police department.

Under amendments approved Tuesday by the City Council, 13 commission members will be appointed by the council, one from each ward, and two commission members will be appointed by the mayor. Commission members will elect a chair and vice chair.

The commission will sift through information gathered from the review panels to make policy recommendations to the police chief, who makes the final decision on whether an officer should be disciplined. State law doesn't give oversight boards authority to issue disciplinary measures, and the commission's findings on whether a complaint has merit will remain advisory.

Council Member Elliott Payne, who voted against the ordinance, said afterward that the process was "very rushed." He said the council will need to revisit the issue next year after it finalizes a settlement with the state Department of Human Rights and grapples with the results of a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the police department, which is likely to result in a consent decree imposed on the city.

Council Vice President Linea Palmisano, who voted for the ordinance, disagreed with Payne's view that the council had acted hastily. She said the council had been getting briefings on proposals from the civil rights department since last summer and that there had been three public meetings in recent weeks.

The most controversial amendment Tuesday, introduced by Council Member Jason Chavez, would have removed all sworn police officers from the review panels that will evaluate citizen complaints, making the panels entirely composed of civilians. It failed on a 6-5 vote.

Council members who supported Chavez's amendment said the review panels needed to be independent of the police department. But Palmisano, who supported a police presence on the panels, said that "those impacted by the decision need to be involved." She noted that city statistics show that the current panels, composed of two civilians and two police officers, produce split decisions on fewer than 4% of the cases they handle.

Another amendment brought forward by Chavez, to give the commission authority to contribute to a yearly evaluation of the performance of the police chief, won approval from the council.

Council Member Jamal Osman said police needed to be on the panels and participate in the decisions if the city was going to be able to tackle police misconduct, and he said excluding them would create an "us vs. them" situation with police. Council Member Michael Rainville agreed: "You have to have police to fix the problem. They need to be at the table."

An earlier version of the ordinance would have provided for a system where only the commission members sitting on a panel hearing a complaint would get the complete data about an investigation conducted by either the Civil Rights Department or the police Internal Affairs division. Some activists argued that all commission members needed to see the data if they were to consider whether changes were needed in police policies or procedures. The council voted to make that data available to all 15 commission members.

The current oversight structure has been dormant since April, after a series of resignations and a decision by the council and the mayor not to fill the vacancies. The local activist group Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), which has been critical of the city's police oversight process, took legal action this summer to force the city to fill the vacancies and urged officials to create a body independent of the council, the mayor and the police department.

Dave Bicking, a member of the CUAPB board who sat through Tuesday's four-hour meeting, said afterward that the ordinance was "a step backwards." He said some of the amendments made it better than the proposed ordinance had been, but "it still deserved a no vote." He said the flurry of amendments submitted Tuesday should have had community input before the council voted.

Council members voting for the ordinance:

Michael Rainville, Ward 3

LaTrisha Vetaw, Ward 4

Jeremiah Ellison, Ward 5

Jamal Osman, Ward 6

Andrea Jenkins, Ward 8

Emily Koski, Ward 11

Linea Palmisano, Ward 13

Council members voting against the ordinance:

Elliott Payne, Ward 1

Robin Wonsley, Ward 2

Jason Chavez, Ward 9

Aisha Chughtai, Ward 10

Council members not present:

Lisa Goodman, Ward 7

Andrew Johnson, Ward 12