A national expert on police oversight provided an overview and fielded questions from Bennington residents who plan to create such a committee at an in-person meeting Thursday night.
Brian Corr, immediate past president of the National Organization for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), presented to a crowd of around 30 residents, Selectboard members and members of Bennington Police Department. Corr also serves as the executive director of the police advisory board in Cambridge, Mass.
Applications opened Friday morning for Bennington residents interested in serving on a task force that would define the authority of an oversight board over a period of six months. Oversight boards generally grant citizens the power to investigate, review or audit police departments and officers’ actions.
Corr and Cameron McEllhiney, a member of NACOLE, have contracted with Bennington to help create the board, which first involves creating the 11-member task force.
A slate of Bennington residents, along with the local chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU, have urged town officials to quickly establish an oversight committee following high-profile incidents where actions of police were widely considered discriminatory or insufficient, especially in matters related to race.
Town officials say they’re moving as quickly as they can, and pointed to Thursday night’s presentation as evidence of the legal and technical details that need to be addressed in order to create an effective board.
Corr said though around 200 oversight boards exist in the United States, they’re all different from each other.
A recent report published by his organization, which highlights effective strategies for oversight boards, names 13 principles that successful boards have used. They include independence, “clearly defined and adequate jurisdictional authority,” access to public records, and community outreach, among others.
Those who serve on the oversight board must be able to speak with the media, interact with government agencies, produce reports, oversee police procedures and make hiring decisions, Corr said.
In order for an oversight board to be effective, those who serve on the committee must gain the respect of a wide array of stakeholders. Police have to do the same, he said.
“In oversight, it’s sometimes actually a little bit harder, because we have to have legitimacy with the broad community, with individuals who may have concerns or complaints about policing; we have to have legitimacy with the law enforcement agency as an entity and its officers; we have to have legitimacy with elected officials, with other appointed people in government,” he said. “So it can be very complicated.”
Corr concluded his presentation with a slide that featured a quote from the disability rights movements in South Africa, which read “nothing about us, without us, is for us.”
“That means everybody,” he said. “It means visible minorities. It means law enforcement. It means command staff and rank-and-file sworn officers. It means elected officials. It means all of you.”
Problems in policing
Police chief Paul Doucette, who has been at the center of many critiques of the department, attended the meeting on Thursday. He told VTDigger that he’s ready to work with an oversight board.
“I came here with an open mind, because I know that this isn’t all about just police oversight for things that police do wrong,” he said. “My understanding on all of this, and from talking to Brian [Corr], is that we want to take a look at what other opportunities are out there for the Bennington Police Department, other things that we can be doing in our community that will build trust within the community.”
Doucette said the department is allotted a budget for 26 officers, but currently has 19 on staff. He said the department has struggled with recruitment, and finding qualified candidates can be challenging.
Members of the public have raised issues about the department for years. A recent Human Rights Commission report concluded that Bennington Police racially discriminated against former Rep. Kiah Morris and her family by failing to protect her from incidents of racial harassment. Morris, who is Black, stepped down from her position in 2018 and has since moved from the town.
Following the incident, the town commissioned the International Association of Chiefs of Police, at the suggestion of Attorney General TJ Donovan, to complete a months-long study of the department. The results, released in April 2020, highlighted a deep mistrust between townspeople — particularly marginalized people — and their police department.
Recent traffic stop data indicates that Bennington police overstop Black drivers relative to their share of the population, and they’re searched at a rate nearly three times greater than white drivers.
Advocacy organizations including the NAACP and ACLU have criticized the process the town is using to create an oversight board, calling it slow-moving and “deeply flawed” because of its “lack of meaningful charge or stakeholder inclusion.”
Jenkins rebutted the assertion that the process has been slow. The IACP results were published in April of 2020, she said, and in August of the same year, the town worked to recraft its vision and mission statements. Teams have researched community policing strategies, and now the department has revised 18 policies.
“We really are moving with purpose,” Jenkins told VTDigger on Thursday. “But I think we’re moving as quickly as one really can.”
Corr said he understands the sense of urgency, but that building an oversight board that meets the community’s needs is a hefty process.
“What I always say is that change can’t wait, but sustainable change takes time,” he said. “If you want something that’s going to meet the needs of the community, that has a real chance of meeting expectations, and that has the ability to make lasting meaningful change, you have to be deliberate about the process.”
Questions for Corr
Attendees posed a number of issues to Corr and Selectboard members on Thursday. Because town officials will look to the forthcoming task force to determine what the roles and responsibilities of the oversight board will be, many questions went unanswered.
Clark Adams, a Bennington resident, said he’s looking for a reliable way to hold officers accountable when wrongdoing takes place. He only moved to Bennington full-time in the last year, he said, but has heard about issues with police since then.
“So you have these review boards, you identify issues — where do you go with accountability?” he said. “Is that where you roll back to the city government, or rely on elected or appointed officials? Where’s the accountability or the action to address those problems?”
“The specific way that would happen here in Bennington would have to be determined through this process,” Corr replied, referring to the task force.
Another resident, Antonio De Leigh, said he wanted to see more collaboration between people who disagree.
“There’s a lot of work to do, but we have to acknowledge where we’ve come from,” he said.
Another resident, Jonathan Phipps, who serves as the equity coordinator for Southwestern Vermont Supervisory Union, asked Corr how an oversight board should handle issues related to race, calling it the “elephant in the room.”
“Knowing these disproportionate realities, how does NACOLE suggest we address them?” he said. “What good is an oversight committee if we don’t address that reality?”
Corr said it’s a hard question to give a meaningful answer.
Part of what oversight has to do, he said, is make sure that committee members are considering individual instances in an objective manner.
In addition, he said, the board has to make sure “you’re also working to have a system that, overall, is fair and impartial. That policing, law enforcement and public safety is delivered in a way that is fair and impartial.”
