Updated at 12:33 p.m.
In fall 2021, a consultant carried out an independent review of the Burlington Police Department and submitted a 172-page report on how to improve policing in the city. Nearly 18 months later, city councilors finally have a plan to address the deficiencies.
At its meeting on Monday, the council established a timeline for tackling the 150 recommendations in the report, which was created by the Virginia-based nonprofit CNA. Top priorities will be investigating racial disparities in uses of force and establishing a community mental health advisory committee.
The council’s Public Safety Committee will help the police department enact the recommendations, according to Councilor Joe Magee (P-Ward 3), who chairs the committee now. That could change next week, after the council swears in new members and reorganizes its committee assignments.
“It’s important for us to begin to get a handle on it, in terms of the resources that we have to implement [the recommendations],” Magee said. “I think some folks have been waiting for the report to be finalized to actually take action.”
The council commissioned the CNA report after several high-profile incidents of alleged police brutality spurred calls to reduce the size of the police force — a demand councilors heeded in a controversial 2020 vote. CNA’s wide-ranging report called for restoring police staffing but found that city police lack sufficient oversight and need better training, among other improvements.
The city has started implementing some of CNA’s recommendations, but Monday’s meeting marked the first time that councilors formally reached consensus on which reforms to enact first. The plan is based on a report from the council’s Public Safety Committee, which prioritized CNA’s findings with help from a “working group” of police officers, members of the city Police Commission and others.
The group’s report was initially due in March 2022 but was delayed because of staffing shortages in the city attorney’s office and turnover on the committee.
Members didn’t always agree on how to rank CNA’s suggestions. One of the more contentious was CNA’s finding that Burlington police were more likely to use force on Black people. CNA recommended that officers examine their biases and that the department investigate every instance of force.
Acting Police Chief Jon Murad disagreed with the finding, writing to the working group that the department had “drastically reduced disparities” in recent years and eliminated them in 2021. The majority of the group, however, wasn’t swayed: The item is listed as one of two “highest priority” tasks in its report.
The other top item is forming a mental health committee, whose members would observe officers being trained in de-escalation and other methods. “Doing so promotes transparency and provides opportunities for public feedback,” CNA wrote.
Other reforms are contingent on changing the department policy on internal investigations. The present version “allows officers to violate policy undetected,” CNA wrote, recommending a wholesale rewrite to promote greater transparency around officer discipline. The working group agreed and suggested in its report that the department codify a procedure for handling complaints against officers.
Work on some of CNA’s recommendations is already under way. The city recently received grant funding to create a crisis response team and is working to boost its outreach to local refugee communities. The police commission is also updating several department directives, including one that would require officers to intervene when they witness excessive force and another that would have all street outreach workers carry police radios.
Just one item on the long list is complete: The department recently hired a public information officer, a position CNA said would help “bolster legitimacy and build public trust.” The council has also agreed to hire more police officers, another work in progress. Magee said he expects the full council will receive updates as the committee work continues.
“We’ve got a long road ahead here,” he said.
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