It’s too early to tell whether a proposal to create an independent entity to monitor the Police Department has new life, but it now seems likely city councilors are willing to at least have that conversation.
In a procedural vote last week, councilors rejected a proposal to allow voters to decide the matter by placing it on the ballot — in the form of a city charter amendment — as part of the Aug. 23 municipal election.
That the measure failed was no surprise. It had “more teeth” than the final Office of the Independent Monitor proposal submitted by Mayor G.T. Bynum in 2019, but most councilors were wary of granting the monitor additional powers.
Those powers would have included the authority to subpoena witnesses and conduct independent investigations of the Police Department.
What councilors did seem to agree on Wednesday was to take a trip back in time and restart the OIM conversation where it went off the tracks in the first place — at a City Council meeting in August 2019.
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That’s when councilors had before them the final version of Bynum’s proposed OIM ordinance. It was a document eight months in the making, and one councilors had been briefed on multiple times, including in public meetings.
It seemed like a go — until it wasn’t. The vote never happened because some councilors and some members of the public thought the OIM should be granted more authority.
So councilors delayed the vote, and soon thereafter, Bynum pulled the proposal, citing the lack of consensus among councilors.
“I still wish we could rewind time and take that original vote, but we can’t,” Councilor Kara Joy McKee said Wednesday.
Maybe not, but Council Chairwoman Lori Decter Wright said last week that councilors had expressed a willingness to reconsider establishing the OIM through a city ordinance.
“Are they willing to do the work, I don’t know?,” Wright said.
She noted that the top recommendation of the City Council’s Accountability and Trust working group is to establish an OIM. The working group, which will present its findings later this month, is one of several created by the council in response to the Equality Indicators reports public meetings.
“We could even bring forth the old, formerly drafted ordinance and use that as a jumping off place,” Wright said, referring to Bynum’s August 2019 proposal.
Bynum himself said Friday that he is open to having a conversation with councilors and other affected parties.
“I will always work with my colleagues on the City Council to try to find common ground,” Bynum said. “I have already met with Councilor Decter Wright along these lines, and I am eager for my colleagues to hear directly from Chief Franklin on all the work he and his leadership team have done in the spirit of high standards and accountability for the Tulsa Police Department.”
Councilor Jeannie Cue said she wants to hear from the police chief, mayor and the community before making a decision.
“You have to have the right people that are affected to be part of the conversation,” Cue said.
McKee said Bynum’s final OIM proposal would be a good place to restart the conversation, “and we can hit the ground running because we know it can pass city legal, and it checks many of the boxes.”
Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper, who has been advocating for the stronger version of the OIM, has also said she would participate in the discussion.
Discussion does not mean action, though.
Councilor Connie Dodson said that while she’s always open to having a conversation, “I won’t guarantee support ahead of time because it’s hard to tell where that process will lead.”
Councilor Jayme Fowler, meanwhile, said that it is important to have the discussion and that he would gladly take part in it.
“We have to have a dialogue and discussion,” he said. “That’s just the way it is, but right now I would be not real open to the idea (of creating an OIM). But with that, is that we just simply have to have a dialogue and discussion. It is a prudent and thoughtful part of the process.”
Councilor Phil Lakin said he’s looking forward to the Accountability and Trust working group’s report.
“Whatever actions we might take probably should start with the report of that committee,” he said.
What a new OIM ordinance might look like is unclear. Bynum said last year that he was no longer pursuing an OIM in part because of programs Franklin has implemented. Those include an internal Use of Force Review Board and Community Advisory Boards.
Franklin’s initiatives, the mayor said, largely accomplish the main components of what he sought to establish through an OIM: the development of in-house policy analysis for TPD, increased community engagement and a mechanism of oversight.
He’s also noted that Franklin has an agreement with the DA’s Office that all officer-involved shootings are independently reviewed by that office.
But none of those mechanisms provide the formal independent review of a wide range of use-of-force incidents, including officer-involved shootings, called for in Bynum’s August 2019 OIM proposal.
And that was an integral part of why he first proposed the OIM.
He noted at the time that typically the only way the public ever learns about a use-of-force incident is when the District Attorney’s Office files charges or a civil lawsuit is filed.
“Internal Affairs investigations are conducted confidentially, and citizens don’t have a means of verifying results,” Bynum said. “I think we owe it to the citizens and to the officers to do better.”
Here are the highlights of Bynum’s final OIM proposal as presented to councilors in August 2019:
OIM’s Responsibilities: Monitor certain investigations of TPD personnel; make recommendations regarding policy issues; provide independent community engagement, outreach, and initial complaint filing assistance in line with best practices.
Selection Process: A screening committee that would include a city councilor, a current or retired judge, a sworn peace officer employed by the Tulsa Police Department and others would recommend three to five candidates. The mayor would select the monitor.
Use-of-Force Reviews: The OIM would have 10 days to review Internal Affairs’ reviews of use-of-force incidents after they are completed to ensure that they were done properly and thoroughly. If the review is not completed within 10 days, the Internal Affairs investigation would be considered to have been done properly.
The OIM’s review would be sent to the police chief, who would be under no obligation to act on the monitor’s recommendations.
The OIM would have no authority to discipline officers.
The OIM would provide an annual report.
Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of the OIM; make policy-level recommendations to the mayor and police chief related to discipline, use of force, hiring, training and other policies; and address community concerns.
Make-up: Eleven-member body selected by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council; one member from each City Council district, and two at-large members. No officer or employee of the city, nor any active officer of any state law enforcement agency, would be eligible to serve on the board.
The COB would have no authority to investigate use-of-force incidents, nor could it investigate officers or discipline them.
