Cheeks is missing at first but shows up, all other here. Minutes get approved, no disclosures or recusals and they move on the main event. Only 5 members of the public in attendance, tho I know many more wanted to be here.
Here’s the audio
Alder Rebecca Kemble moves the substitute.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Greg Gulembiek is the only speaker, but I think a few others just turned in some slips. Greg says speaking from he podium is not a good way to dialog. He reads from a letter he sent to them.
Dear Alders,
With regard to the police task force proposal, I asked the advice of Alex Vitale, a police reform expert, on what structure and process should be used (and I sent him a copy of the original proposal). Here is the response Alex Vitale e-mailed back.
—————————————————–Basically you want to impanel a task force that has strong representation from constituencies heavily impacted by policing and then have that task force decide which experts to bring in. Then the experts are directed by the panel in terms of what to look at. Finally the panel writes a report not the experts. If the goal is to improve police community relations, especially across race lines, then there must be heavy representation from the population most at odds with the police. This does not mean just bringing in a few ministers, it has to be young people and folks who work with young people out on the streets on a regular basis. Otherwise you are unlikely to achieve anything substantial in terms of the professed goal.
Hope this is helpful.
Alex S. Vitale
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
Brooklyn College
—————————————————-
I also contacted Seth Stoughton, an expert in police reform and police training (and a former police officer himself). Seth Stoughton is faculty at University of South Carolina School of Law. His advice was similar to that of Alex Vitale – the preferable process would be to set up the task force committee first, then have that committee select and correspond with (and in some cases retain) appropriate experts, then interactively work on generating a review. He also noted that such a process is a good mirror of consent decree monitoring teams. He also commented that it was important to get the best possible feedback from experts with different sub-specialties.Sincerely,
Gregory Gelembiuk
He says the original proposal as written is in direct conflict with what the experts have to say. He says that if they want something substantive they should not do it the way they have it set up. He says that 2 years ago he started working on this when Paulie Heenan was shot a block from his house and he also lives a block from where Tony Robinson was shot. He says to follow what was recommended in the letter. He got cut off.
More speakers have registered.
Eric Upchurch from Young Gifted and Black and he talks about the people’s court and that one of the root causes of these issues and they community decided on community control over the police. He says that there is a group of people who have the ability to exercise control over the police and we still have disparities. He says that that now we are hiring experts to give advice to those same people, if the policies have not changed, how will this be any different. He says if there is money for s a study, the study should be about community control over the police. If we don’t want to do this over and over we should give the community control over the police. If the community had control over the police when Matt Kenny shot and killed someone in 2007, he would have been fired. Now Tony Robinson is dead. Lets work smarter not harder and do what is common sense. If this is a democracy, that doesn’t mean that the people actually have control, we need the community to have control, we should focus on that.
Nick Livingston didn’t speak.
Leila Pine is here as a mother. She says that just 2 blocks from her house, Pauly Heenan was shot and killed. Her son lived with them and he walked home after drinking and was given the keys to a friends apartment and tried to get in the wrong door, similar to what happened to Pauly Heenen. The reason she is not falling to pieces is because he got lucky, a police officer came becasue a neighbor called, they listened to her son, he gave them her address and she was called by the police and they brought him home. That situation could have been handled like Paulie Heenan. This is a human issue, this is a human rights issue. It affects mothers of color disproportionately, and mothers with kids of color. Please listen to them.
Will Gruber says he was on the street for the first year and a half and he is annoying to people. He is loud and has a loud voice. He talks about protesting during a capital event and 2 police came and told him he couldn’t do what he did every other day. The police came up and chest bumped him, he had pot in his pocket and he walked away and chest bumped him to go in a different direction. They followed him to the bus stop and he was electrocuted. He was doing what he was supposed to do. He got electrocuted and he’s a white guy. They just killed another baby and we can’t do that any more.
Amerlia Royko Mauer is in opposition. She appreciates the desire to move forward and look at the culture of the police department. When she mentioned to the Heenan family this was happening they were stunned, that is a real positive. There are things that are positive about this but the one piece that is extremely hard to handle is that those who are most impacted by the nagative impacts of policing and criminal justice system for all of their lives. They have expertise that needs to be brought to the table and to waste it would be a real shame. We need to bring the right people to the table and address the issues they raise. We need to bring radical partnerships to the table, we need to stop being afraid of those who are asking people to be better than they think they are. She hopes there is language she can support.
Nate Royko Maurer read the letter that he and others wrote. (See link for letter) He runs out of time.
Joan Kemble registers.
Crystal Sanchez registers
Patrick Kempfer talks about a few of his experiences. In Decebmer 1999 he was drunk and on hallucinogens at the house that Tony Robinson was in, he left the party, got in an altercation on the sidewalk and attempted to go back and went to the wrong house, he passed out, was taken to jail and released 3 days later, In August 2005 he was speeding, he didn’t pull over, they tore through the Fair Oaks neighborhood and tried to hide behind Brother’s Three, pulled their guns and he got a couple tickets. He was released, he also was able to drive to his destination. He served a 10 day sentence (7 days in Huber), at no point was he hurt, shot or killed. He says that people who are good looking are treated differently, he doesn’t think he’s good looking, but he is white and he thinks while people are treated differently.
Brandi Grayson registered.
Allison Kong (sp?) loves the idea that the police are there to protect people from those who are dangerous and help people stay peaceful. She thinks the best way to do that is to recognize that they have the humanity to do it and that people who have autonomy thrive. (oops, I missed some of this) When police who are outside the community come in and make rules that don’t make sense we have problems. She wants people who live in the community to be the police, to see themselves as servants, and help bring out the best in their neighbors. We don’t need a police force, we need a force for peace. She is for giving control to communities.
Brandi Grayson says that what we are missing is the lack of power of our community to have a say so, to enforce our findings and suggestions. The resolution lacks community power. THere are experts being appointed, who support the point of view appointing them, if we are going to shift power, then we must move from the position of impact. Its great we have good intentions, but we are missing out on the opportunity to move towards justice. People in this room are used to Young Gifted and Black and their position that we have to shift power, we might not have titles behind our names, but they are the ones impacted. We need to move from plantation politics, if we are going to make real and concrete changes, then we have to shift power to our communities. Even when we have good people in messed up situations there are implicit biases and the elected officials don’t hold them accountable. The community has to demand justice. We need to move towards including those most impacted.
M Adams opposes the resolution as it exists. It doesn’t address the fundamental issues, two gaps are in the resolution. It should be community centered – which is different than hearing a few community voices, it should have those most impacted. It doesn’t address the issues of power, how will those most impacted have the power to change policing. This was meant to be good, it was a good idea, and it is being done for people, but it won’t lead to the change because it doesn’t address the root issue. You will just have another committee, we are trying to do something different than what we have now. We need this to be community centered and have community power. We know we are challenging you to do something that has never been done, to put power in the hands of people who have direct lived experience with police violence. This does not address the root issue of power and the power the police have over the community.
Kabzuag Vaj also in opposition. She talks about the be it finally resolved language, she says that Asian Americans is not one group that speaks with one voice, in the city of Madison it is primarily Hmong kids. They need to look at southeast asians or Hmong folks. She wants to know how they can set aside $50,000 if you don’t talk to the community first if you think that you already know who you will bring in. She is tired of the city looking to the same leaders that lead organizations, can we look beyond the nonprofits and work with those most impacted who can’t make it to the meetings, who are locked up, etc. You can no longer listen to your own voices or those you typically think of as leaders, its time for it to come from those most impacted.
Camy Manthay is opposed and thinks it is an insult to bring in other experts when YGB and others have worked so hard to say what they want. She reads the language about participating in how they are policed, they are talking about community control of police. A participatory process that includes people in the community.
45 minutes of testimony. Half hour of the meeting is left.
Questions of speakers
Cheeks asks Amelia Royko Maurer about who should appoint the committee. She says that she needs to be educated about the option, she has learned a lot in the last 2 weeks and she feels that more community discussion is needed. She would like to be present for a brainstorming session, not us getting up here and yelling, but talking about options and brainstorming. There is a lot of fear about the mayor making appointments because of how he took the one comment Brandi Grayson made, she says in her own words if you put a lid on a boiling pot it will overflow and they took that and let it flow. She says that the mayor is fearful and is spreading that fear. She thinks that there were good intentions of the authors, but it is a process that should be led by the community and public, that is how you get buy in and if we can come to the table without fear that would be huge.
Maurice Cheeks asks Brandi Grayson or M Adams about “community power” and he thinks that was expressed well and a good point, in the context of a committee, do you have a suggestion about how community power would be substantiated. One a committee a there is a finite group of people who get to vote. Brandi says that the communities should decide who would best represent them. Go to the source and ask them. M says that a committee can exercise equity in many ways, you have to come up with some sort of way to make sure that minority voices are heard instead of just going with numbers. And second, the powers that the committee has is important, so if they don’t have to follow the community recommendations, they don’t have any power. Otherwise this will be a report that doesn’t do anything. Brandi says that is what plantation politics, we’re willing to take $50K to have an expert but not put money into the communities most impacted and socially and economically hurt. You could take 1/3 of that money and appoint people from the community to decide who is on the committee and who the experts are. M says that community members should decide, not just mayor appointed. If you look at poor black communities, how would the mayor know who fairly represented that community.
Marsha Rummel asks how you make it real, the only thing she came up with, she says that instead of forming a committee now and reach out to communities to have a public hearing and through that process find people who speak well for the neighborhoods. Rummel says that they will struggle with constitutional issues with community power, but what could that look like in the interim. Brandi says go to the communities, ask and engage people. The trick will be to get them involved. The people you are talking about are facing homelessness, mental illness, housing issues, domestic violence. It has to start with you. We have to start at the local level, we have to reverse the way we think about it. M Adams says that because we have never seen community control, as a class, you have that in white and affluent communities. There is a group of people who have studied police institutions, they are putting together a plan to achieve community control over the police over time they will share that as they come up with it. For instance the Police and Fire Commission should be led by people impacted. They have a group that is working on this. They have a whole team working on it and would be happy to do a presentation for them. M says the other thing they can do is to create a Tony Robinson Community Center and that would greatly impact and improve the lives of those impacted by the murder of Tony Robinson.
Barbara McKinney was interested in the person who walked about community voices being at the table. She asks if we should be holding meetings like this in the community and instead of expecting people to come talk to us should this be out in the community. She was having a problem with the term about contol over police and she says that she is looking for a dialog and community discussion. We need to find a way to have those conversations and dialogues, if it means that it means we move to the communities most impacted she can understand that. She says they are struggling and trying to move in different directions.
Questions of Staff
Matt Phair says it is 5:30 and he doesn’t think they should cut this off, but they need to move to committee of the whole. DeMarb says they have 15 minutes and the other items on the agenda can be pushed back. She says they could move this to the council without a recommendation.
Motion and Vote
Bidar says that they can’t do justice to this in 15 minutes and she would prefer for us to not make any recommendation and debate it as the entire council at 6:30. She says they can be revolutionary in their own way and not debate it to death and debate it til 8am.
Maurice Cheeks moves to refer it to the council with no recommendation.
It’s seconded and appears to pass with no recommendation.
They move referral of the other 2 items to the next CCOC meeting.
