Eureka To Hire Police Review Ombudsman

City forgoes grant funding, with $66,000 program funded by police salary savings

Humboldt Sentinel
12/12/08
By Charles Douglas

EUREKA -- After a string of fatal police-initiated shootings and calls in the community for independent review, the newly inaugurated City Council is set to hire an independent police auditor on Tuesday to provide oversight on the practices of the Eureka Police Department.

Bob Aaronson, who appeared in April at the police practices forum co-sponsored by the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission and the Coalition for Police Review, has been recommended by fellow panelist, EPD chief Garr Nielsen, to serve as the new Police Ombudsman.

“Mr. Aaronson will review investigations of citizen complaints against Eureka Police officers and investigations which allege excessive or unnecessary force by a Eureka Police officer, to determine if the investigation was complete, thorough, objective and fair,” Nielsen stated in a report to the Council today. “He will also review department policies and procedures as they become relevant in the course of accomplishing the review of these investigations.”

In addition to submitting written reports to the City Manager and Council, Aaronson will also appear at Council meetings when requested and be accessible to the public via city-provided e-mail and telephone and office hours in City Hall.

“The Ombudsman will have the authority to take citizen complains/inquiries and either address them immediately, submit them to the Police Department for review, or review an investigation previously investigated by the Police Department,” Nielsen stated.

Councilmembers had previously voted unanimously to submit a grant application to fund such a position, with the active support of the Redwood Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Yet the accessibility of grant funding is no longer seen as enough of a stumbling block by city officials, who are moving ahead with their police review program to the tune of $66,000, to be funded by salary savings from within the EPD -- which is now fully funded thanks to last month’s vote in favor of Measure D, which raised Eureka’s sales tax rate.

“I don’t think the system of having an ombudsman is as good as a police review commission, but I think it’s a tremendous first step, and I really commend the City Council and Garr Nielsen on this,” Redwood ACLU vice chair Greg Allen said in an interview with the Sentinel. “I think people in Eureka will feel more empowered and it will create better relations between the Eureka Police Department and the people of Eureka.”

Nielsen has been working with Humboldt County sheriff Gary Philp and representatives from the Board of Supervisors, the HRC and the Redwood ACLU on a county-wide proposal to share the services of a police auditor and the collaborative work of a police review advisory committee made up of local citizens. While city officials had originally called for a separate citizen committee to just cover Eureka, the absence of this entity in the current ombudsman proposal would seem to indicate support a unitary police review committee at the county level.

“It seems like we’re starting to see the workings of an equitable and fair police review system,” Allen said.

Commissioners met last week to approve the final draft of the county-wide police review system, and have forwarded it to the full Board for a public hearing sometime early in 2009. If approved, it will leave the Arcata Police Department as the only local law enforcement agency of significant size to totally lack independent police review.