Forum on Police Review in Eureka

February 27th, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Eureka Women's Club
16th and J Street, Eureka

The Forum on Police Review in Eureka is
Sponsored by the Coalition for Police Review (CPR)
which includes the Redwood Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project, the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, the Waterfront Greens and many concerned citizens.

Keynote Speaker:
Barbara Attard
Past President,
National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Encorcement (NACOLE)

Barbara Attard is the San Jose Independent Police auditor, and the previous director of the Berkeley Police Review Commission, one of the oldest civilian oversight agencies in the United States. Ms. Attard began her career in civilian oversight with the San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints in 1983 as one of the first investigators hired for the newly founded agency. She has been active in international and national associations of civilian oversight for over twenty years, and has championed the use of mediation in police misconduct cases and authored an article, “In Praise of Mediation.” While at the OCC, she developed an "Early Warning System" for detecting and counseling San Francisco police officers whose citizen complaint records indicated possible problematic behavior patterns.

Ms. Attard earned her Masters Degree in Public Administration at the University of San Francisco. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy and Social Science from Humboldt State University in northern California.

Featured Speaker:
Mark Schlosberg
Police Practices Policy Director,
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
of Northern California

Mark Schlosberg has worked on a variety of policing issues including racial profiling, accountability systems, surveillance, crowd management, and use of force. He was on the legal team that reached a landmark racial profiling settlement agreement with the California Highway Patrol, managed the successful 2003 ballot campaign to strengthen the San Francisco oversight system, and has authored several reports on policing issues, most recently The State of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California. Prior to working at the ACLU of Northern California, Schlosberg worked as a deputy public defender at the Contra Costa Public Defender Office and was Vice Chair of the Berkeley Police Review Commission.

Schlosberg received his law degree from New York University School of Law.

The CPR forum will be moderated by Christina Allbright and Greg Allen, and will include your questions for the speakers and a public dialogue on how best to achieve police review in our community.


For more information, visit our office at 917 Third Street, Suite Q, or call 215-5385, or check out our new website, coalitionforpolicereview.info.

Religious group calls for police review

News Article by James Faulk
1/6/07
Times-Standard

EUREKA -- The Humboldt Buddhist Peace Fellowship is sending a letter to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors and the Eureka City Council asking for a police review board.

The letter became public after the fourth police-involved shooting in the past eight months occurred Thursday, but the letter was written before the most recent shooting.

”The members of the Humboldt Area Chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship are alarmed and disturbed by the three fatal shootings in the past eight months by officers of the Eureka police, and by the behavior of members of other law enforcement agencies in Humboldt County,” said the letter.

The letter states that data from Bureau of Justice Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that Humboldt County should have roughly one police-involved shooting every three to four years.

”We've had three in eight months,” said the letter.

”We believe it is urgent that civilian institutions with substantial powers of investigation be created and assigned the task of reviewing the behavior of law enforcement officers in Eureka and throughout Humboldt County,” it reads. “We would like to see a civilian police review board be created by the county and/or the city, and provided with subpoena powers.”

If officials at the county or city fail to take action, the group says, it will take the case to the Grand Jury.

”While we commend law enforcement officers for the protection they provide us all under sometimes difficult conditions, we still believe civilian review is imperative. We must all take responsibility for the manner in which our government enforces laws.”

Mitch Trachtenberg, a member of the group, said the calls for police review are not an attack on police.

”Law enforcement is the responsibility of everyone,” he said. “When the police are behaving appropriately, there's no problem with civilian oversight. If someone is worried about police review, then perhaps they're behaving inappropriately.”

Eureka Police Chief Murl Harpham said he doesn't see a need for a police review board. “We do a pretty good job of policing ourselves,” Harpham said.

He said the last three people fired from the department were fired for things discovered from internal investigations, not from a citizen's
complaint.

”We see a problem, we take care of it,” Harpham said.