Following up on last week's Cheat Sheet post on the Champaign City Council that also previewed this week's police reform study session (report, video, and topic-specific public comments link). This post has news and additional coverage from that study session as well as some related news. From WICS coverage:
The department has spent much of the last year communicating with the public through discussions and listening sessions about how the roles of police departments should change in the future.
During the listening sessions, Champaign Police said they heard a lot about the role that law enforcement should play, as well as the trust and training involved when it comes to becoming a police officer.
Community members also pushed for better education of officers and transparency from the department.
That full article here. The Study Session report includes a lot of additional information about the local historical context and documentation from the public input events. Last week's Cheat Sheet post had highlights with page numbers. Members of the public and the Council often referred to Dr. Travis L. Dixon's participation and final report (on page 21, Attachment A) during Study Session meeting itself. Dr. Dixon summarized some common concerns and discussions. As an example:
Several community members used common slogans such as “defund the police.” Once we drilled down on exactly what this meant, several community members advocated for police NOT being the first responders for a number of calls. These calls include issues dealing with mental illness, domestic violence, and homelessness. Instead, community members called for the allocation of funds to social workers or other specialists who are trained to intervene in such issues. In terms of the specific reform suggested, police would be present only as a back-up in case the call became violent or dangerous.
He went on to note pilot programs locally and elsewhere in the United States towards those concerns:
Both the city of Urbana and the U. of Illinois police department are developing pilot programs which attempt to institute similar approaches to these calls. In addition, a number of programs have been instituted in other municipalities that might serve as a model for this. These include: Cahoots in Eugene, Oregon (https://whitebirdclinic.org/what-is-cahoots/) and PERT in San Diego, CA (http://www.comresearch.org/pert.php). I would strongly encourage city leadership consider implementing something along these lines in the City of Champaign.
More in the full report here, with Dr. Dixon's report beginning on page 21. The News-Gazette had more coverage here. Excerpt:
After holding listening sessions and study circles last year on policing, Champaign police Chief Anthony Cobb laid out a plan Monday for the city council that would see the addition of community-service officers and a collaboration with Urbana police on its One Door pilot program for emergency mental-crisis calls...
And Cobb said the community-service officers would be civilian employees who coordinate with patrol officers to respond to “non-criminal, nonviolent maintenance and quality-of-life calls.”
Several council members said they liked the One Door program and the idea of community-service officers but suggested avoiding “officer” in the title and wanted more clarification on how they would operate.
Full article available here. Public comments and Council comments also went further to suggest there be more options looked into for social workers and access to services before law enforcement contact in situations where their role may not be ideal. There were discussions about how the response system, including METCAD, might be adapted to dispatch the appropriate services matched to the situation (e.g. a social worker as opposed to a squad car for certain wellness checks).
There were also concerns raised about waiting on other programs, such as the City of Urbana One Door pilot program as opposed to being proactive in Champaign towards reforms. Discussions got into the weeds on current training and the limits of training (timing and results), metrics to measure success, and various escalation scenarios.
There were two public comments sections, one that was topic-specific of the Study Session here, and one that was open to general comments here. In the first section there were several local activists as well as the Chair's of the City's Human Relations Committee and the new Chair of that body's Citizen Review Subcommittee for police complaints (latest updates on their meetings on the Cheat Sheet here). President of the local NAACP branch, Minnie Pearson also spoke positively of the "work in progress" towards police reform locally while reiterating some serious concerns, such as protection of children in custody after a disturbing incident in national news.
The meeting stayed overwhelmingly civil in spite of some serious and passionate disagreements on the subject. There was a moment where the meeting went a bit off the rails (jump to video) as Deputy Mayor Tom Bruno explained the complications in a way that even he described as disparate. The examples ranged from communist East Germany, a pretextual stop of a prostitute on a bicycle without a bell, to the effectiveness of the extremely controversial "stop and frisk" program.
Reactions ranged from bewildered and laughing members on the Zoom camera to a pointed criticism by council member Fourman. She noted that the data for the "stop and frisk" program revealed that it wasn't effective for addressing crime or criminal behavior, but extremely effective in pitting police against vulnerable communities.
Related News:
In yesterday's Champaign County Community Coalition meeting (agendas, video), CPD Chief Cobb noted that there has been a bit of a reshuffling of the leadership staff in the wake of 's retirement (WCIA coverage on that here). The CPD's organizational chart is available here (from the police divisions page) and staff page here (with some updates still pending).
The Community Coalition facilitator, Tracy Parsons, also noted that next week the City of Champaign would be getting updates on various programs and initiatives addressing local violence. He invited community members to attend. He said it would be dealing with community violence, C-U Trauma and Resilience Initiative, Community Violence Response Task Force, and reentry programs.
[UPDATE: next Tuesday's February 16th Study Session report is now available on the rise in gun violence with local data and community programs and efforts to address the problem. Agenda is available here. The Study Session report is available here.]
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