Shawn Vestal: Law enforcement accountability a worthy aim

The latest report posted online by the citizens board charged with reviewing the performance of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office consists of three paragraphs.

It involves the case of Will Berger, who died after a confrontation with deputies in 2013 at Oz Fitness on the South Hill. Berger’s family has sued the county for $20 million. The report of the Citizens Advisory Board, written in the form of a letter to Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, noted that the panel had reviewed the investigative files, and that it had followed up with questions that the department’s “subject matter experts” answered. None of the questions or answers was specified. The letter concluded that deputies had acted in “full compliance” with their training and department policies.

“And that’s it!” said Rob Lee, who is petitioning the county commission for citizens oversight of the sheriff’s department. “That’s what we’re supposed to take as a thoughtful, independent investigation?”

One more thing about the review: It is not just the latest public document on the CAB website. It is the only one.

Lee has begun gathering signatures on a petition calling for independent citizens oversight of complaints against the sheriff’s department. The people gathering signatures – chiefly political antagonists of the sheriff, some of whom throw around allegations that should be taken with piles of salt – are hopeful that they’ll have more than 1,000 names to present to county commissioners soon.

Lee, who has challenged the county over his son’s medical treatment while in the county jail, was helped with the petition by the Center for Justice, which was a driving force in establishing police oversight in the city of Spokane.

“I’m going to ask the commissioners to support this,” said Lee. “If they don’t support it, I’m going to ask them why not.”

Knezovich says he also thinks civilian oversight is a good idea. But he says the department already has it: the volunteer CAB, which was started under Sheriff Mark Sterk.

“I believe we should have outside eyes” on controversial cases, he said. “That’s why I have a citizens review board.”

Knezovich says his board already does what the petition drive seeks: review cases and issue findings. But the findings it issues are the like of the Berger letter, which provided no documentation about the reasoning or rationale for the board’s conclusions.

Charles Parker, who has been on the panel for years and who wrote the Berger letter to Knezovich, said the volunteer members of the CAB have done a good job of reviewing cases, holding open sessions and asking crucial questions. He said the board is providing the same service that the city’s ombudsman system is meant to provide – “only we do it for free.”

He acknowledges that the board does not produce “fancy reports” or have a website where it details the manner of its inquiries – as the city ombudsman office does, at least when it’s up and running. He praised Knezovich’s transparency in dealing with the CAB.

“Ozzie provides us with all the details we need,” Parker said. “We sit down as a board, we review them and read them … and we decide on a group of questions. Ozzie provides us with whoever we want to talk to.”

He said that if people want more information about the board’s work or conclusions, they are welcome to attend the monthly meetings.

It’s an interesting time for this issue to arise. In the city of Spokane, the issue of police oversight went through a bruising battle that lasted several years, before the creation of a citizens review board to run the ombudsman’s office. Mere months after board members were appointed and began meeting, it fell apart. First, Ombudsman Tim Burns left, and he has yet to be replaced. Then the citizens panel collapsed – committee chairwoman Rachel Dolezal was fired, for obvious reasons, and two other members of the five-member board also resigned after allegations that they’d abused their power.

The police accountability train, in other words, is all the way broken down right now in Spokane, and there is a discouraging sense of momentum lost. But the values and goals of the system are worthy. It’s a good idea for the city, and it’s a good idea for the county.

The reason is the same in both cases – mistrust. When cops are accused of wrongdoing, the public has a reasonable expectation that someone other than their deskmates, or even cops from other agencies, will pass judgment.

The trust question is valid even if much of the mistrust aimed at Knezovich lately is outlandish. Knezovich has earned the animosity of the end-times, bullets-and-bravado fundamentalists, who have arisen in umbrage over the sheriff’s willingness to acknowledge the presence of home-grown extremism and its connection to the self-declared patriot class of leaders like Matt Shea. He has now become the “tyrant” du jour for the wannabe revolutionaries who thrive upon imaginary battles between good and evil.

Knezovich says the call for more oversight is coming from just a few politically motivated critics. He also takes issue with some of the representations made by petition supporters and says they have misrepresented and lied about several cases. The details of these cases are too many to get into here, but in at least some of the cases, Knezovich seems right: A lot of what is being thrown against him is hyperbolic nonsense.

And yet when it comes to citizens review, the critics have a point. A more robust oversight system, with more detailed public accountability, is worth a fuller discussion, and county officials should give it one.

Editor’s Note: This story has been altered to correct an error stating that Rob Lee’s son died in jail. Lee’s son is alive.