DON'T HANDCUFF POLICE OVERSIGHT

Resisting Independent Review Panels Hurts Metro Atlanta's Cops And
Public They Serve

Metro Atlanta public officials need to act boldly to ensure that
local police departments use violence only when necessary -- to
protect themselves and others -- when confronting potentially
dangerous suspects, and that shootings by police officers are
investigated fully and fairly.

And the best way to accomplish that is to authorize private citizen
panels to review all police shootings of suspects and to create
independent, professional monitors who can help police enhance their
own safety as well as those they are sworn to protect.

Community tensions over fatal police action have been high since last
year, when DeKalb County police were involved in a dozen fatal
shootings of suspects, an unusually high number for a department its
size. Then in November, narcotics officers in Atlanta killed an
elderly woman in a hail of gunfire when they broke through the front
door of her home in a botched drug raid.

So far, the Atlanta incident resulted in two officers pleading guilty
last month to manslaughter in state court, and to federal charges of
conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the dead woman. A third
officer has been charged with false imprisonment and making false
statements to police investigators.

Meanwhile federal officials have an ongoing probe of police
misconduct in Atlanta's narcotics division as a result of what they
learned about the cover-up of the botched drug raid. The 2006 DeKalb
shootings have also resulted in a continuing special grand jury
investigation into police conduct.

Even as those investigations continue, the metro area has witnessed a
spate of suspect shootings in recent months.

After being called to break up a fight, Fulton County police shot and
killed Ron Pettaway and wounded his brother Roy outside a College
Park night club April 15. Neither man was armed, and the family of
the Pettaway brothers has asked a judge to issue criminal warrants
against the two officers involved.

The county police department continues to investigate the shootings,
as does the county district attorney and the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation. But so far little information has been made public and
distrust within the community is growing.

Since the first of the year, police officers in Acworth and Clayton
County have each shot and killed a suspect and Gwinnett County police
have fatally shot two suspects.

In Atlanta, police have shot three suspects just since April 28,
twice when trying to pull over vehicles and once when an officer
chased a suspect on foot who had fled a car thought to be stolen.

There were no fatalities in the three Atlanta shootings; with the
exception of the Pettaway brothers case, there has also been no
suggestion that police acted irresponsibly. Indeed, in one of the
Gwinnett shootings and the one in Acworth, the suspects fired on
officers who were protected by bullet-proof vests.

Yet only Atlanta seems to be dealing with the spate of shootings with
any degree of seriousness. City Councilman H. Lamar Willis convinced
the council to revitalize the city's moribund civilian review board
and give it wide-ranging authority. The 11-member group will be given
subpoena power to look into police conduct and issue yearly reports
to the mayor and city council.

Rather than allowing an independent review, DeKalb's police chief
decided to enact a new policy of asking the GBI and federal Drug
Enforcement Agency to send agents to the scenes of police shootings
to observe investigations. That is less a substantive policy than a
PR move, since those agencies are limited to acting mostly as
advisers to the county police commanders, not as independent reviewers.

Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton county police departments rely
exclusively on county prosecuting attorneys to review suspect
shooting cases. But most of the time those reviews are based on
investigations conducted by the department's own internal affairs officers.

In those blessedly rare instances where the actions of the officers
constitute a crime -- as they did in the Kathryn Johnston case --
prosecutors may seek criminal charges. But if not, the review usually
ends there, with no effort made to probe the incidents further for
lessons that might prevent future shootings.

For instance, in several of the recent incidents, including the fatal
shooting in Clayton County, police shot into a moving vehicle, which
in many departments is banned by policy.

In contrast, more than 100 large American cities and counties have
adopted formal citizen-review panels or professional monitors to
examine police conduct and make recommendations that can improve procedures.

Denver has a full-time monitor overseeing the city's 1,400-member
police force and 850 county sheriff's deputies. The Denver monitor's
$600,000-a-year budget includes lawyers, an ombudsman and a data
analyst. Tucson, in Arizona, has both a professional monitor and an
unpaid civilian review board with the authority to examine files on
civilian complaints once the department's internal affairs unit has
completed its work.

Police instinctively resist such oversight, often fearing that being
second-guessed by civilians will make them afraid to use force when
necessary. But the best cops know there is no substitute for constant
training, up-to-date procedures and strict adherence to wise
department policies.

By emphasizing and reviewing all three, the lives saved by
independent overseers are just as likely to be those of police
officers as they are those of suspects or civilians. Ignoring the
issue will result in more deaths and less credibility for police and
public officials alike.