Last week, Atlanta officials celebrated an agreement between the police department and the Atlanta Citizen Review Board to increase civilian oversight over the agency.
In a statement, Mayor Andre Dickens described the agreement as a step toward rebuilding trust between the government and the people it serves.
Tiffany Roberts, co-founder of Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety, a police accountability organization responsible for getting the review board subpoena powers in 2010, told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday that the vague language in the agreement still lacks transparency when it comes to the community.
“The [memorandum of understanding] really doesn’t mention the community at all. It doesn’t enhance transparency,” she said. “For the most part, it just formalizes what really should always happen.”
Issues with the review board were raised in a troubling investigation published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January that found that the board had failed to investigate 39 deadly-force incidents since 2020, when the Atlanta City Council expanded the board’s powers.
The report also highlighted the review board’s failure to begin investigating deadly incidents even after the criminal investigation was completed by the district attorney’s office, who only brought charges in half of the cases.
The new agreement stipulates that APD will notify the review board of any changes to use-of-force policy. But Roberts said board members should already be aware of APD’s standard operating procedures because that should guide their determination on if an officer should be disciplined or not.
Roberts, who is now director of public policy at the Southern Center for Human Rights, believes key issues remain unaddressed that could still hinder the review board’s work to effectively address police accountability.
“I think the big takeaway should be that the ACRB needs the staff to conduct responsible and thorough investigations. With or without the [memorandum of understanding], that’s necessary because they’re required to review these incidents rather than just being permitted to do so without a complaint,” Roberts said.
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Despite the 15-member citizen board having only four investigators and 10 other full-time employees, its executive director, Samuel Lee Reid II, spoke favorably about the new agreement.
“This [was] truly a collaborative effort to try to correct some issues that were raised and ensure that we have proper communication and accountability and transparency going forward,” Reid told the council’s Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee last week.
During the July 14 committee meeting where Reid presented the agreement, District 12 council member Antonio Lewis directly addressed the elephant in the room by asking if the agreement will prevent another embarrassing situation like what happened earlier this year.
“I just want to make sure that you’re being given the information [so] that we don’t have to listen to the news … doing open records requests and what they get out of it is totally different from what you’re saying,” Lewis said.
Reid tried to reassure Lewis, describing the agreement as the result of months of discussions between the citizen review board and the Atlanta Police Department facilitated by the mayor’s chief strategy officer, Peter Aman.
“We’re on the right path to continue the success with the ACRB and as I always say, [we are] leading the nation in how to do civilian oversight,” he said.
“While this revised agreement is a step in the right direction towards transparency, we hope the work to protect the rights of people in Atlanta will be ongoing,” Christopher Bruce, policy and advocacy director at the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement to Capital B Atlanta.
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Some of the terms in the new agreement are:
- APD has 24 hours to report firearm discharges, officer-involved shootings, serious bodily injuries in custody, and deaths in custody to the review board.
- APD must also share case files with the board within 24 hours, unless they are “restricted by a DA request or active appeal.”
- APD has to provide a written report to the review board when the disciplinary decision imposed on the officer is greater or lesser than what was suggested.
- The review board has three business days to report its decisions to the police department, the mayor’s office and city council.
- New review board members will attend the citizen police academy during their orientation.
- The review board will observe APD recruitment and training, and offer feedback
- The board will train APD on the complaint and investigation process
In an effort to maintain the agreement’s effectiveness, APD and the review board will meet biweekly, monthly, quarterly and annually to discuss and provide potential updates.
As for Roberts, in addition to transparency concerns for the community, she would like to see the review board broaden its scope in the future to include investigating misconduct by off-duty APD officers and creating a mechanism for more public input on their actions.
