The Dallas Community Police Oversight Board may be limited in how it can carry out one of its chief responsibilities — to investigate complaints made against police officers.
A legal opinion shared during a recent board meeting basically said the oversight board can only investigate certain complaints.
Office of Community Police Oversight (OCPO) Interim Director Elaine Chandler told the board that people have two options when submitting a complaint: either through the police department or though the community oversight office.
“It’s just that OCPO nor the board can vote to investigate something that hasn’t first been investigated by IAD,” Chandler said.
But complaints classified as "no investigation" by the Internal Affairs Department are also off limits to both the OCPO and the board.
"In the unofficial discussion with CAO, it was communicated that uninvestigated complaints are ineligible for board review," Chandler said in a memo to the board prior to Tuesday's meeting.
Chandler said during the meeting the official opinion echoed that earlier discussion.
“This seems to fundamentally change what the board is,” District 14 Board Member Brandon Friedman said during the meeting. “What’s the point of a citizen filing a complaint with the police oversight board, if IAD can override that complaint?”
When pressed by board members who from the City Attorney’s Office handed down the opinion, Chandler wouldn’t say.
The opinion document is confidential. It wasn’t shared directly with the board — only summarized by Chandler. And no representative from the City Attorney’s Office was present at the meeting.
KERA reached out the City Attorney’s Office to ask about the opinion, why it was confidential and why a representative was not at Tuesday’s meeting but did not receive a response before this story was published.
“Where does the secrecy come from?” District 9 Board Member Alison Grinter Allen said during the meeting. “I don’t know that we get pushed around by secret lawyers who aren’t here and didn’t write us anything, and whose names you won’t tell us.”
The interpretation of the ordinance that dictates what the board can — and can’t do —comes amidst an investigation into Dynell Lane, a veteran living with disabilities that was reportedly forced to urinate himself after being denied access to a restroom in Deep Ellum.
‘We are being played’
Chandler said her office figured this out late last year while trying to secure documents pertaining to three complaints submitted. She didn’t say if the request was denied by the department — only that the ordinance was brought to the attention of OCPO while in the process of trying to review a complaint.
The ordinance says the board can “review the facts and evidence” of a complaint against an officer following the “completion of all findings and recommendations of the internal affairs division” — and after the final determination of the complaint is made by the department.
“Board, we are being played,” District 3 Board Member Walter Higgins said. “What we see in that ordinance is not what we agreed upon or we would have walked out of the meeting and burned the whole process down.”
Higgins was a part of the negotiation process that led to creation of the ordinance initially.
“We either have investigatory ability from it or we do not,” Grinter Allen said. “And I’m not sure that even as the ordinance stands, that it can be interpreted by the City Attorney’s Office in secret to say that we have no authority.”
Chandler said after she reviewed the ordinance — she says the ordinance is clear about when the OCPO and the board can step into the process. And again — that’s after IAD has completed their investigation.
Grinter Allen said during the meeting that in the past, the board has interpreted the ordinance to mean that if IAD is not going to investigate that has satisfied the investigation requirement.
“That was covered as well, and it was stated that that is not considered an investigation,” Chandler said.
A "no investigation" determination can happen a few different ways including the complaint not meeting the department's criteria or if a "preliminary investigation is able to determine, based on evidence available, there is no violation of department procedures."
‘What we can and can’t investigate’
Nearly all board members said they did not approve of the interpretation of the ordinance.
“The power of this board is to conduct independent investigations,” Friedman said. “If IAD is telling us what we can and can’t investigate, then we are not conducting independent investigations and my understanding, the entire time I’ve been on this board, is that is what we do.”
Board Member Deatra Wadsworth has been on the board since the beginning and says the body was always tasked with taking complaints directly from Dallas community members, reviewing them and voting on whether to initiate and investigation.
“City Attorneys Office has been present in these meetings over and over and over again,” Wadsworth said. “And never ever, not one time, voice some anonymous opinion that we could not vote to have an independent investigation.”
Wadsworth told Chandler that she should have brought this news to the board earlier so they could spend time discussing the possible discrepancy in the ordinance.
At least one board member said the former police monitor, Tonya McClary, said she could request an investigation — without any action.
City Manager T.C. Broadnax attended Tuesday’s meeting virtually and said the ordinance is “plainly written” in the board’s duties — but it also said IAD needed to investigate the complaints first.
Broadnax told the board that he would try to make sure someone from the City Attorney’s Office was at the next meeting to give some clarity to the issues brought up by the members.
KERA's Toluwani Osibamowo contributed to this report.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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