Members of a new Minneapolis civilian police oversight commission officially began their terms last week.
Chosen from among more than 160 applicants, the 15 members that make up the Community Commission on Police Oversight (CCPO) — one from each ward appointed by their respective council member and two appointed by Mayor Jacob Frey — were sworn in last month.
The members of the commission are:
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- Ward 1: Josh Loar
- Ward 2: Mara Schanfield
- Ward 3: Paul Olsen
- Ward 4: Melissa Newman
- Ward 5: Jennifer Clement
- Ward 6: AJ Awed
- Ward 7: Mary Dedeaux-Swinton
- Ward 8: Fartun Weli
- Ward 9: Stacey Gurian-Sherman
- Ward 10: Alexis Pederson
- Ward 11: Philip Sturm
- Ward 12: Derrick Vorpahl
- Ward 13: Nichelle Williams-Johnson
- Mayoral appointee: Louis Smith
- Mayoral appointee: Latonya Reeves
The creation of the commission was approved by the council in December, but not before pushback from many community members and activists ahead of the vote. Critics called the new commission impotent and lacking actual power to hold problem officers accountable, and pointed to previous versions of police oversight bodies that were ineffective.
The CCPO replaces the Police Conduct Oversight Commission (PCOC), which hadn’t met in months due to the vacancies of six of the commission’s nine seats. Former chair Abigail Cerra, an attorney, resigned due to the failure by mayor and council to appoint new commissioners, which prevented the body from meeting. Cerra also said the commission’s recommendations were ignored by city elected officials and the police chief.
MinnPost talked to some of the newly appointed commissioners, who say they recognize the body won’t immediately solve issues of lack of trust, transparency and accountability in law enforcement. But they say they aim to get the ball rolling on remedying those problems, and hope to be an avenue for police oversight by all residents.
Civilian review panels
AJ Awed, co-executive director of neighborhood organization Cedar Riverside Community Council and a former Minneapolis mayoral candidate, serves as the commission’s representative from Ward 6, which includes the Cedar Riverside, Elliot Park, Philips West, Seward, Ventura Village and Steven’s Square neighborhoods. He said he applied for the commission because he wants to help improve the relationship between police officers and the city’s residents.
“The biggest deficit in this city as far as it relates to police and police accountability is a disconnect between the citizenry and law enforcement and the huge gap in trust,” he said. “I saw this as really an opportunity for us to inject some of that trust back into the system.”
One component of the new CCPO that Awed said he thinks will help rebuild that trust is that it will serve as a pool for smaller review panels made up of three commissioners and two sworn officers. The rotating panels will review police misconduct cases as they arise and make recommendations for discipline to MPD Chief Brian O’Hara.
“Prior, there was an equal balance between police officers on the review panels and civilians, but now that makeup has changed, which I think does a lot to instill that trust and also bringing more accountability for the public at large,” he said.
Critics of the new structure have said that while the civilians on review panels now outnumber officers — who are assessing their own colleagues — three to two, it cannot take action on misconduct investigations but only issue recommendations to the chief, which the chief could then ignore.
Awed said he thinks the critique is well-founded but state law prevents civilian oversight bodies from imposing discipline on officers.
Engaging the community
Mary Dedeaux-Swinton, a community volunteer and the newly appointed Ward 7 CCPO commissioner, also lamented the lack of action the panels are able to take but said the commission has room to provide oversight despite the barrier in state law.
“That is a valid concern but I still think the commission is important — it’s a great first step,” she said. “You can throw up your hands and walk away and say ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with this,’ but that is naive because whether you are actively involved or not, we still have a police department, and I’m gonna do what I can to ensure that we have the best one possible.”
Dedeaux-Swinton moved to Minneapolis in 2015 and has served on several local boards since then, including the city’s Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission. She was also a member of the Police Conduct Review Panel, the previous two civilian-two officer iteration that reviewed misconduct cases and sent recommendations on merits to the chief of police.
She said she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to represent Ward 7 — on the western side of the city featuring wealthier neighborhoods like Lowry Hill, Kenwood, Cedar-Isles-Dean, East Isles, Bryn Mawr and parts of downtown — on the CCPO because it’s important “the community have a voice in people who essentially work for them.”
“If you don’t listen to people in the community, you might be missing out on the ideas that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own, and there might be concerns that the community has that you didn’t consider,” she said. “Community involvement to me is super important in making this commission successful.”
Another function of the CCPO is to request research or studies on MPD policies or practices to ensure lawful, effective and nondiscriminatory policing. The commission can then make recommendations to the mayor, city council and police chief based on those studies.
Dedeaux-Swinton said the commission can solicit from the public what they’ve experienced and issues they may have with law enforcement, which they can then use to initiate the study process and ultimately remedy those issues.
“We’re all from the community, but it’s important to hear actual people from the community come and talk about what the issues are, so that we can determine what it is we want to research or look into,” she said.
The issue of transparency
Fartun Weli, the commissioner for Ward 8 in the south-central part of Minneapolis that includes the Lyndale, Northrop, Kingfield and Regina neighborhoods, is the founder and executive director of Isuroon, a nonprofit that advocates for Somali women and girls. She said she hopes to bring her experience as an immigrant, as well as the experiences of community members she has worked with as part of her organization, to the commission as the representative for one of the wards that borders the intersection where Floyd was murdered.
“I’m connected with different communities and have learned about their experiences, and I’m bringing in direct experience from the community to that table,” she said.
Weli said transparency was a big motivation for why she applied and joined the CCPO. Since Floyd’s murder, she said, there has been widespread fear and mistrust of law enforcement, and a lack of transparency in how police do their jobs has contributed to that.
Among the commission’s powers are compiling statistics related to things like patterns of officer misconduct complaints. Sharing that information with the public, as well as shedding light on police policies and practices, may help improve police-community relations, she said.
“Sharing what we can share, and also being consistent in communication, that combination will build trust but it’s going to take time,” she said.
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