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Senate's obviously the main event right now, but there's also a weird exchange happening over in House Public Safety...
Members are weighing a bill that would require people to complete a community college police academy and 20+ hours of virtual law enforcement training before serving on civilian review board.
Tim Sparling, speaking on behalf of nonprofit Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said the reform org opposes the measure because it would block access to the communities most affected by police incidents.
GOP board members responded by jumping down Sparling's throat about @AACJ_AZ's funders and membership list, questioning where the group is based (it's in the name) and what they do as if they're a new fringe organization. I'm pretty sure AACJ has been around for 30+ years...
Reps. Payne, Roberts and Finchem indicate they don't understand the argument that this bill would create barriers to entry. They want members to be 'educated.'
The bill has been amended to require 80 hours of community college training (versus a 540-hour police academy.) I believe the 20+ simulated training is a separate requirement.
Asked who would pay for the training, Joe Clure with AZ Police Association says the 'pay is generally picked up by the (agency) sponsor of the board.'
'We're having some preliminary discussions with comm colleges about making a course of this nature available to just the general public who might have a curiosity and a desire to perhaps understand better what police officers experience in use of force...situations,' Clure says.
'Typically what happens in civilian review boards is they are a second check on an internal affairs investigation that is already done by the department,' Sparling said. 'Because of that, many of these boards are truly advisory & they're supposed to serve as an objective check.'
'We feel that this bill effectively takes the 'civilian' out of civilian review board, and we have we have several concerns about that,' he said. 'The purpose of these boards is to democratize review of police conduct and to build community trust through involvement.'
Sparling notes a '2nd layer of requirements' in order to join a policy academy program that 'functionally block a lot of these individuals from communities of color.' GEDs, physical/medical tests, etc., and people with felony convictions can't join.
AACJ also concerned bill will block impoverished/low-income Arizonans from joining.
'AZPOST does reimburse people who *graduate* the academy ... but there doesn't seem to be a similar provision for people who take these requisite classes that are in the bill,' Sparling said.
'AZPOST does reimburse people who *graduate* the academy ... but there doesn't seem to be a similar provision for people who take these requisite classes that are in the bill,' Sparling said.
'By eliminating an objective viewpoint and encouraging people already in law enforcement to join, this risks the board being co opted by law enforcement, and ultimately that leads to rubber stamping whatever investigation was done by an internal affairs,' Sparling said.
He noted a Department of Justice report that showed 'that when these boards are staffed by members of the police departments or people who have police training, they have a greater tendency to just agree with whatever the internal affairs investigation concluded.'
'Could that be because they're educated?' Rep. Payne countered. 'To me, it seems to me like it's a much better idea to have them educated and understand what these officers are up against, but yet you want to throw them in as totally blind.'
'A lot of these boards actually have members of the department sitting on them that can actually inform them on police department procedures and provide them any kind of additional information they need,' Sparling said.
