by Patricia Lesko

The Project Team at consultant Hillard Heintze, a Chicago-based security consulting firm hired in Mar. 2017 by City Council, and who is being paid $200,000 to review the Ann Arbor Police Department, is seeking feedback to help “in understanding the community’s interactions with and opinion of the Ann Arbor Community Police Department,” according to a letter shared by the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission (AAHRC) on May 5. In an effort to collect the feedback, Hillard Heintze has launched an online survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/annarborpd) and is asking residents to share their opinions, confidentially. The online survey ends May 30.

Kenneth A. Bouche is the Chief Operating Officer at Hillard Heintze and, together with Deb Derby, he is working on the AAPD’s review.

“As part of our proposal, we stressed that traditional adversarial civilian oversight would not bring about the positive changes they were seeking. As we see it, the events that have shaped law enforcement over the past several years mandate a change in approach. At Hillard Heintze, we have adopted an approach that has been coined Co-Produced Policing – in which police and the community come together with equal voices to determine how their community will be policed,” said Bouche.

On Mar. 5, 2017 the Ann Arbor City Council approved the decision to have the Hillard Heintze team conduct a comprehensive review of AAPD’s services to all communities within Ann Arbor and develop recommendations for a model and implementation plan for civilian oversight of the Department. The decision came more than 24 months after the shooting of black mother of three Aura Rosser in her home on Winewood in Sept. 2014. It was a FOIA by The Ann Arbor Independent that prompted the AAPD to finally release the names of the officers involved in that shooting. In Nov. 2014, The Ann Arbor Independent as well as Michigan ACLU, pushed the AAPD to release public records related to the shooting.

The ACLU of Michigan’s 8-page letter to AAPD’s former Chief Seto began, “The ACLU of Michigan has grave concerns about the recent death of Aura Rosser at the hands of one or more members of the Ann Arbor police Department.” The letter goes on to say that while the ACLU of Michigan has “reached no conclusion” about whether the killing was justified, the ACLU points out “a seemingly ever-growing list of people of African descent…who have been killed by the police.”

Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie declined to charge the officers involved in the shooting. Rosser, who suffered from bipolar disorder, and who was topless when officers entered her home, was said to have been holding a fish boning knife when simultaneously tasered by one officer and fatally shot in the chest by the second officer. The County Prosecutor’s report released to the public in Jan. 2015 pointed out that Rosser had drugs in her system at the time of the shooting. However, the levels were trace amounts and consistent with her having ingested marijuana and/or cocaine during the previous 14-21 days.

The Hillard Heintze online survey consists of questions that address issues of citizens’ perceptions of neighborhood safety and police professionalism. There are also questions that will determine if Ann Arbor residents believe the city’s police officers are engaged in racially profiling. There is also a section where those who take the survey may leave written feedback, including detailed feedback about interactions with the AAPD’s officers.

In June 2016, AAPD Chief Jim Baird, wrote in a memo to council that he would support a civilian review board if it were recommended by a third-party audit. He maintained, however, he did not personally view public oversight as necessary.

“Following an audit of the Ann Arbor Police Department is the logical time to evaluate whether a Civilian Police Review Board is warranted,” he wrote. “The commission’s [HRC] report does not identify or even suggest systemic issues within the ranks or leadership of the agency that would warrant such a step.”

This is a link to the Human Rights Commission’s 2015 report prepared by the city’s Human Rights Commission members working in conjunction with University of Michigan law students, residents, law enforcement officials and the local legal community, among many others.

Jim Baird was a patrolman on the AAPD in 1995. The HRC’s report states that, “Some residents have not forgotten the 1995 investigation where, in a difficult-to-solve rape case, DNA was collected by Ann Arbor police from 150 black men who met a very general description of the perpetrator, but were not linked to the crime by any other evidence. A lawsuit resulted claiming that the collections were coercive and that the DNA samples were not returned to the men who were cleared (but, instead, were deposited in a DNA bank). This matter, though dated, still influences the community’s broader concerns about the AAPD and racial bias in policing more generally.”

The HRC’s 2015 report alleges: “Lack of Police Department Transparency and External Review – There is a lack of transparency with respect to Ann Arbor’s police practices, policies, training, and complaint processing. The current complaint process, for example, where complaints about police conduct are given to and investigated by the police themselves, without any external review or the right of appeal may, no matter how well executed, be considered suspect. There are also insufficient avenues for constructive communication between police and the community to increase understanding and trust.”

Data provided by former Chief Seto to the HRC, showed that 77 percent of the citizen complaints involved police demeanor and/or conduct and four of the complaints concerned officers’ use of force. “Little beyond the dispositions of the internal affairs investigations stemming from these complaints was disclosed,” according to the HRC report. “Some kind of external review of the complaint process could help increase residents’ confidence in both the process and the police.”

In July 2014, an Ann Arbor police officer resigned amid allegations that he’d offered young women leniency in exchange for sex, The Ann Arbor News reported in Dec. 2014.

Jason J. Kitts was a patrol officer in June 2014 when at least two women filed three complaints with the Ann Arbor Police Department. Kitts was subsequently charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor. In May 2015 Circuit Court Judge Carol Kuhnke sentenced Kitts to 11 months in jail and three years of probation. Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie had asked that Kitts receive no jail time, but Kuhnke refused the recommendation.

The AAPD did not alert the public to the officer’s alleged predation. Kitts had worked for the Ann Arbor Police Department for eight years before being permitted to resign.

“The investigation [into Kitts] was the result of citizen complaints,” said Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Steve Hiller in a Jan. 22, 2015 news article.

In April 2017 The Michigan Daily published a piece titled, “Hands Up: Black students denounce over-policing in Ann Arbor.” In that piece, the reporters pointed out that, “As of the last Bureau of Justice Statistics survey in 2013, 82.8 percent of sworn AAPD officers were white, more than 10 percent higher than the percentage of Ann Arbor residents who were white.” U-M students told The Daily that “police scrutiny isn’t limited to the time and place the of event itself: Black students say they’re more likely to be stopped….” The 2015 HRC report states that 82 percent of AAPD officers are white. “Gender imbalance based on census numbers also exists: only 24% of the officers in the department are female,” states the HRC report.

“Reform in community policing is impossible without direct engagement from the community. At the same time, police departments that truly embrace the process of self-examination are the ones that deliver the best possible services to their communities and provide officers with guidance and recognition for doing so,” said Bouche.

The 120 cities in the U.S. with civilian oversight boards of their police include Berkeley, CA, Cambridge, MA, Cincinnati, OH, Columbia, MO, Eugene, OR and Iowa City, IA. In Berkeley, that city’s oversight board offers mediation between police officers and complainants. The budget is more than $540,000 and there is a staff of three—Director, Investigator and Administrative staff. In Cincinnati, the board consists of seven citizens appointed by the Mayor and approved by City Council. There is a full time Director with support staff, as well as a team of professional investigators. In 2014-15, Cincinnati budgeted $845,070 for its oversight board.