Hold police accountable with civilian oversight board

by Jasmin Maurer, PEP Director
Letter to the editor 9-17 St. Louis Post Dispatch

The shooting deaths of Mike Brown and Kajieme Powell by police officers have made clearly visible the extreme problem of racist militarized policing in our community.

In the aftermath of these deaths, protests have erupted demanding justice. There are those who have stepped forward from our elected leadership, and those who have stood back. Sen. Claire McCaskill is one who stepped up, calling for demilitarization and a panel to look into the programs that put military weaponry into the hands of local police departments. 

As director of the Peace Economy Project, I applaud efforts to demilitarize police and keep weapons of war out of our communities. But we must also find ways to hold police accountable and address the systemic racism present in our police structures that allow police officers to kill black and brown people at alarming rates.

One structure to hold police accountable is a civilian oversight board of the police department. But the proposal for civilian review by Ferguson is laughable. With no citizen input, the board they have proposed holds little to no power to check the police.

In the city of St. Louis, Alderman Terry Kennedy plans to introduce a bill to enact civilian review. This bill, created after decades of work by the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, offers a true solution for accountability. The board holds the power to not only monitor Internal Affairs investigations, but to conduct independent inquiries with subpoena power and make policy recommendations.

This type of oversight is gravely needed. Police are charged with the public safety of our communities, but when their presence makes our neighborhoods less safe, we need a way to address that. St. Louis city’s review board would give a platform for citizens to do just that.