On November 18, City Manager Bob Healy proposed changes to the Police Review and Advisory Board (PRAB) ordinance passed by the City Council twenty years before.

The city manager was responding to a lawsuit filed in May 2004 by a group of concerned citizens and attorney Richard Clarey. He had not appointed PRAB board members or a director for over two years.

Just before the hearing in September, Healy named four new board members and the court gave him six months to deal with the issues raised by the lawsuit.

But he doesn’t want to hire a director required by the ordinance. So he is changing the law so that PRAB is added to the job description of the Human Rights Commission director, Quoc Tran, to whom Healy has already given the task.

Healy was already city manager in 1984, when the PRAB ordinance was passed. He made clear from the outset that he was opposed to the idea, and delayed appointing the first board and executive. PRAB had its first meeting in 1987.

At the November 18 hearing, Lawrence Adkins said, “The current secretary [of the PRAB] may be very knowledgeable about human rights, but that does not mean he knows about police procedures.”

Kathy Podgers testified that police told her that she “could only file a complaint if the officer was rude.”

Heather Hoffman stated that her husband complained to the PRAB on August 2, 2004 and has yet to hear anything from the board. “The biggest problem is that the City Manager does not want the citizens looking at anything that is going on in the city.”

Elie Yarden said, “The City Manager’s contempt for the PRAB has been going on for a long time. The City Manager’s contempt is the real problem.”

The city ordinance forbids the PRAB director from serving other City boards or departments. Thus the current situation is illegal, but that is ignored by the Council and the Manager.

Attorney Richard Clarey cited a 1982 Chronicle article in which Healy went on record opposing the PRAB. “The proposed changes would emasculate the board,” he said.

(All quotes are from Ordinance Committee minutes, November 18, 2004.)

On January 4, 2005 the PRAB met and reviewed the Manager’s proposed changes. They accepted some and rejected others.

Who goes there?

One unanswered question is, why doesn’t the review board have jurisdiction over Harvard and MIT police? The campus police enjoy arresting local residents who take an interest in public affairs. The City police dispatcher often diverts calls to campus police, even though they have no jurisdiction to enforce City ordinances.

There are no provisions in the ordinance to address abuses by police dispatchers. Nor is there any provision to address the informal arrangements between the City police and the campus police.

The original Police Review proposal, twenty years ago, covered university police. But that provision was struck out before the ordinance was voted on.

The City Council seems unable to exercise any control over the City Manager, who usurps the powers of the Council. His notable achievement, the Triple-A Bond Rating, deflects criticism of his abuses of power.

The Cambridge police coordinate delivery of mental health services at the Cambridge Health Alliance. (Annual report of the Alliance) Unlike criminal charges, an accusation of psychiatric illness has no due process protections. There are no provisions in these proposals to address this growing potential forabuse of police powers.

In 1990 one person wrote to the Cambridge Chief of Police and the Internal Affairs Division complaining about police harassment. Ten days later he went to police station to file a complaint. The sergeant on duty refused to take his complaint.

Police arrested him and held him for 78 days for a competency evaluation, which takes about 5 minutes. The assigned Public Defenders all worked for the police. They did nothing to uncover the police frame up.

For the next 14 years police and their criminal informants intensified the harassment trying to provoke incidents to justify what they did in 1990. Perhaps that is why no one files complaints about police misconduct.

This same person attempted to file complaints against the Cambridge police for discrimination with the Human Rights Commission. But the Cambridge Human Rights Commission refused to address police discrimination.

A few years ago, the Cambridge Human Rights Commission presented a “Lifetime Achievement Award” to “sponsors” of the awards event itself. The recipients were landlords who had “sold their properties to the Cambridge Community Housing Development at below-market-value price.” (letter, Quoc M. Tran, Carmen S. Negron, Cambridge Chronicle, May 31, 2000)

On July 15, 2002, the Cambridge police broke down the door of a home in East Cambridge. They entered the home and shot Daniel Furtado dead. The police had no court order. They had no warrant. They had only a report of the man cutting a cable TV wire, a misdemeanor. They had no probable cause to arrest the man. No elected City official, nor the Human Rights Commission ever made a public comment against this police murder.

Malvina Monteiro, who for 10 years served as executive secretary of the PRAB is suing the city for racial discrimination. That trial began in state court in January, six years after she filed her complaint.

Boston's experience

Northeastern University criminologist Jack McDevitt, lead investigator for the 1991 St. Clair Commission, said of Boston’s original civilian review board,“Nearly six months into its existence the board had not heard a single case.”Howard Friedman, a prominent civil rights lawyer who worked with the civilian review board created in Boston by the St. Clair Commission, said it was dysfunctional because it lacked real power. "The citizen appealed but the citizen never got to see the investigation materials."

Criminologist Sam Walker of the University of Nebraska, said that two models for review boards have been effective. “Auditing boards have the authority to examine the policies and procedures of an entire department. Under the other model, the independent review board, a panel is restricted to investigating individual civilian complaints of police misconduct.” Walker says the auditor model is preferable.

McDevitt and Walker have been asked to work out a new proposal for Boston.