Civilian review plans languish for Boston police

About two months after City Hall received a new proposal for a civilian review board to investigate misconduct by Boston police officers, the mayor's office said yesterday that top city officials have not reviewed it and that Mayor Thomas M. Menino still intends to revive a civilian appeals board with limited powers that has been defunct for more than a decade.

The inaction from City Hall provoked an outcry from some community leaders, who insist civilian oversight of the Police Department is needed to foster trust with residents, especially because police say a lack of witness cooperation is a major hurdle to making arrests in homicides and shootings.

The community leaders said they were briefed last month on a proposal for a civilian board that would not have subpoena power, which some specialists believe is needed for a board to be effective, but which police and city officials oppose.

The proposal for a new board, which has not been made public, was drafted by Northeastern University criminologist Jack McDevitt. He was retained in December 2004 by Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole and given $40,000 to travel the country and find suitable review board models for Boston.

McDevitt, who said last night he has not spoken to the mayor about his findings, said his recommendation highlights aspects of civilian boards in four cities: Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.

He pointed to the San Diego board's long history, the Washington board's complete independence from the Police Department, Denver's strong involvement of civilians in reviewing misconduct and use-of-force cases, and Phoenix's use of extensively trained citizens to sit on panels that review different aspects of the Police Department.

McDevitt served as lead investigator for the St. Clair Commission, which reviewed the Boston Police Department after corruption allegations and recommended the earlier civilian review board. That board started in 1992, but lacked investigators and subpoena power and soon became inactive.

''What everybody felt was that the appeals board as it originally existed here was a little narrow, and most communities around the country have a broader model of civilian oversight," he said.

Boston has not had any form of civilian review other than the one started in 1992. The city's powerful police unions staunchly oppose the idea.

O'Toole, however, pledged to create such a board after the fatal police shooting of Red Sox fan Victoria Snelgrove in October 2004. An independent panel that investigated Snelgrove's death also called for a civilian review board.

City lawyers have been reviewing McDevitt's proposal since early this year, police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

Menino was not available for an interview yesterday. Seth Gitell, his spokesman, said the mayor is working with O'Toole to ''modernize" and ''reenergize" the old civilian appeals board. ''That's the direction in which the mayor would move," Gitell said.

Shortly after O'Toole said in December 2004 that she planned to create a new citizen review board, Menino expressed concerns, saying, ''They could take charge of the Police Department. . . . We shouldn't have an aggressive approach where we have a board out there saying, 'Oh, the police are doing a bad job.' "

Driscoll said the department's Internal Affairs system works well for its approximately 2,000 officers. She said that over the past five years, police have received 2,448 allegations of misconduct and have sustained 1,120 of those allegations.

''We do a great job policing our own and, if anything, we should be acknowledged for that, not criticized," Driscoll said.

Jorge Martinez, the director of the nonprofit community group Project RIGHT and a frequent partner on city antiviolence initiatives, said that while he supports a board with more power, such as the authority to subpoena witnesses, he would be happy if Menino would sign off on anything. ''Starting somewhere is better than not starting at all," Martinez said.

Sam Williams, the program director at First Church of Roxbury, said McDevitt's proposal sounds fair, ''almost trying to meet the City of Boston halfway."

He said residents desperately want some form of citizen review. ''A lot of folks feel like they make reports and they end up going nowhere," Williams said.

McDevitt said he and his staff looked at 40 civilian review boards and focused on about 10, seeking a board model that would work in Boston. About 80 percent of US police departments with more than 1,000 officers have some kind of civilian board, he said.

Philip K. Eure, who runs an independent civilian review board that oversees the Washington, D.C., police, said a couple of McDevitt's employees visited last year to study that board, which has subpoena and investigative powers as well as the ability to make binding decisions.

Eure said the Washington board was formed in 2001 after community leaders pushed the City Council for it. Eure employs 12 investigators and six attorneys and has a former prosecutor running an investigation division, which probes citizen complaints against officers and initiates investigations into topics ranging from department rules to racial profiling.

''It would be helpful for the mayor [of Boston] to learn about successful models of police oversight around the country," Eure said.

Leonard Alkins, the head of the Boston branch of the NAACP, said that he believes citizen review would go a long way toward improving relations between the police and the community.

''The basis of why people are not coming forward is they have no respect [for] the Police Department [nor] a feeling that they will be protected if they come forward," Alkins said. ''That's because the community policing process has broken down. You still have a few people riding through our communities and harassing and disrespecting our citizens for no reason whatsoever, and when complaints are brought forward, nothing is done about it."

Lisa Thurau-Gray, director of Suffolk University Law School's Juvenile Justice Center, a nonprofit that advocates for youth on civil rights issues, called a citizen role critically important right now. ''The level of distrust of Boston police officers is so profound," she said.

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.