Board plans to subpoena police officers

Keith Paul

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 11:04 a.m.

The Citizen Review Board, faced with Metro Police officers who are refusing even to show up at hearings, will now issue subpoenas to force cops to appear at inquiries regarding complaints of misconduct.

The escalating battle between officers and the review board could eventually result in a courtroom challenge into the constitutionality of the board reviewing complaints of misconduct.

The relationship between the review board and the officers has been strained since the police union attorney began advising cops to not appear at hearings.

"We felt the officers would want to voluntarily tell their side of the story," said Andrea Beckman, review board executive director. "Because the union is dissuading (officers from appearing), we will start issuing subpoenas to officers."

Police Protective Association attorney John Dean Harper said he would continue to advise officers not to testify before the review board.

"I'm not going to advise someone not to follow a legal subpoena, but they still don't have to testify," he said. "I don't see anything that will require an officer to testify."

While Harper questioned if the review board had the power to subpoena officers, Beckman said Nevada law clearly states the board has that right. The law states the board may "issue subpoenas to compel the attendance of witnesses to testify before the panel."

Harper questioned whether officers accused of misconduct would be considered a witness in the matter against them.

Harper said he thinks it is "inevitable" that an officer will take the issue of the review board to court. He said the review board doesn't inform officers of the evidence against them or the witness list, nor does it allow the officers to attend the entire hearing or cross-examine witnesses, therefore violating officers' rights.

Sheriff Jerry Keller has encouraged officers to testify at review board hearings. But in the first two allegations reviewed by the board, one officer didn't show up and the other refused to testify.

Undersheriff Richard Winget issued a memo to officers in October urging them to tell the board their side of the complaints.

Officers who fail to appear before the review board after getting a subpoena face not only punishment in court but also discipline by Metro, Winget said.

Beckman said since the review board released two decisions last month that called two internal affairs investigations into citizen complaints severely lacking, Metro officials have been less cooperative.

"Unfortunately, their cooperation seems to have waned once the review board made findings that some of their investigations were substandard," Beckman said. "The board will always attempt to deal with police with an attitude and spirit of cooperation, however, it seems to be taken personally by persons within Metro when the board finds that an investigation was inferior."

Winget admits the Metro and the review board has hit "some rocky roads" since the board started hearing cases this year but denies the department is not working with the panel.

"Accusations that we are not cooperating are absolutely absurd," Winget said. "While individuals may be disappointed at lackings in investigations identified, that doesn't affect or minimize our commitment to cooperate."

Squabbles between police departments and citizen review boards are common when the panels first begin hearing complaints, said Samuel Walker, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and author of "Police Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight."

"It's a matter of simply learning to live with each other and accepting each other's professional role," he said. "Many times there is a long struggle to create (a review board), and once a board is established, police often respond with hostility and resistance."

In some cases the struggles between the two groups continue for years and even decades before a cooperative relationship is formed. The local review board was started in October.

"No review board is going to cure the problem of police misconduct," Walker said. "It's not a magic bullet. I think the major change should be to shift our expectations away from individual investigation to changing (police) organizations' problems."

Beckman said she can't understand why officers who dispute allegations of misconduct wouldn't want to testify before the board, which has sustained only one complaint.

"I feel bad for the officers. I think they are getting very bad advice and it's not to their benefit or the best interest of the community for them not to cooperate," Beckman said. "You would think that officers that are indicating they did nothing wrong would want to be forthright in showing the lack of misconduct."

However, Harper said the board has gone beyond its power granted under Nevada law.

"It's almost like you started a club at school and were given an inordinate amount of power to screw with people's lives," Harper said.