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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Review panel met in private

The first meeting of Spokane’s long-inactive Citizens Review Commission to discuss how police handled a north Spokane neighborhood fracas took place largely behind closed doors last week even though it had been publicized as open to citizens.

The commission met to discuss Bob DeMotte’s complaint about how police handled a late-night incident on June 4 that involved an off-duty Spokane Police Department officer, Lt. Judi Carl, two of her children and several other teenagers.

The youths were held at gunpoint by an angry neighbor, Danny Roske, who accused them of vandalism. Carl has been disciplined for “conduct unbecoming” an officer, receiving a one-day suspension last month for using foul language during the incident. Roske pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor for pointing an unloaded gun at the teens.

Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick referred the case to the Citizens Review Commission on Sept. 22, asking it to rule on whether the police internal investigation was “complete, thorough and fair” and whether it addressed Carl’s influence on the outcome of the event.

A second meeting of the commission to continue its discussion is scheduled today. The meeting notice from City Hall says the commissioners “are expected to adjourn to Executive Session.”

Meanwhile, an attorney for The Spokesman-Review is protesting the commission’s decision to close its Sept. 26 meeting and is asking Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession to ensure that future meetings are held in public.

Even though the state’s Open Public Meetings Act allows executive sessions to receive complaints about individual police officers and other public offi-cials, the commission violated the law when it held all of its discussions behind closed doors, attorney Duane Swinton said in a Sept. 28 letter to Hession.

The commission should have discussed in public the more general question of whether the police internal affairs investigation of the incident was complete, thorough and fair, Swinton said.

A significant part of the task of the Citizens Review Commission “is not focused on the actions of specific police officers. Thus, to the extent the hearing addressed this more general issue and not merely the conduct of Lt. Carl, both the Open Public Meetings Act and … the Spokane Municipal Code” suggest portions of the hearing should be held in public, the letter says.

Secret proceedings “certainly do not provide transparency enabling the public at large to understand how citizen oversight of the Police Department is being handled,” Swinton said.

“Our attorneys aren’t telling me we’re violating the Public Meetings Act,” Hession said Monday when asked for comment.

The commissioners have access to sensitive, uncensored police internal affairs reports and don’t have the authority under city ordinances and police labor contracts to hold their discussions in public, Hession said.

On June 25, the newspaper wrote a series of stories on the lack of citizen oversight of the police in Spokane and on the role of the nearly defunct commission, established in 1995. It hadn’t met in more than a decade, has no staff or budget, lacks subpoena power and reviews only complaints forwarded by the police chief.

On July 18, Hession reappointed four incumbents, including the chairman, the Rev. Lonnie Mitchell.

Members include Marie Yates, who represents police lieutenants and captains and once helped purchase a police dog for the department; retired Judge Richard Richard; Robert Byrne, representing the Spokane Police Guild; and two citizen-at-large representatives, William Ogle and Douglas Puckett. There is one vacancy on the seven-member commission.

Hession also has launched an outside review of the Police Department’s handling of two controversial incidents – the fatal March 18 struggle with Otto Zehm, a mentally incapacitated man who was shocked with a Taser by police in a north Spokane convenience store, and the loss of digital-camera evidence after a sexual encounter between a 16-year-old girl and an on-duty firefighter.

Mike Worley, the independent consultant hired for that review, and a team from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs conducting a broader review of Police Department practices at Hession’s request both are in Spokane this week, Hession said.

In addition, Kirkpatrick attended a national conference in Boise last week to learn about new models of police oversight, including Boise’s community ombudsman, a full-time city employee with two assistants working out of City Hall with a budget of nearly $300,000.