On Wednesday, 2/22, the Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board (PSCOB) met with executive director Samuel Lee Reid from the Atlanta Citizen Review Board. Mr. Reid has been the executive director since 2012 in Atlanta and gave the Athens PSCOB a comprehensive presentation on civilian oversight. He highlighted the fact that oversight is not anti-police, nor activism, nor a liability. It is designed to enhance trust in the process and provide transparency for citizens. He also highlighted how a goal of the board is to ensure that the most professional, best trained officers are the ones engaging with our communities.
Director Reid also answered many of the PSCOB’s pressing questions, specifically with regard to the current situation PSCOB is navigating in trying to get an appropriate Monitor hired. First, Reid recommended that PSCOB has both a full-time Auditor and Monitor. This is aligned with the current recommendations PSCOB has set forth, yet the GOC has still expressed opposition to having both an Auditor and Monitor.
Reid also expressed the importance of having a Monitor with no prior affiliation to ACCPD. He did emphasize that the safety Monitor could come from a different jurisdiction or law enforcement agency, but this is still aligned with PSCOB’s recommendations to simply not have someone with former ACCPD affiliation as the safety Monitor.
Currently, members of the GOC, including Mike Hamby, Patrick Davenport, and Dexter Fisher, have expressed that they disagree with this recommendation and would like to open the Monitor position to people with ACCPD experience. However, allowing a former member of ACCPD to have this position would compromise the independence of the board and goes against Reid and the PSCOB’s current recommendations for the Monitor.
Overall, Reid’s advice and recommendations to the PSCOB were aligned with the PSCOB’s current goals and recommendations to the GOC and mayor/commission. To emphasize the importance of these recommendations, the PSCOB decided to draft a resolution to present to the GOC. The resolution includes 4 demands: 1) The Monitor has no prior affiliation with ACCPD, 2) replace Patrick Davenport, the current chair of the GOC who is on probation, with another commissioner, 3) allow at least 1 member of the PSCOB to be present during the interview for the auditor, and 4) keep the Auditor and Monitor as separate jobs. The resolution will be sent out to the GOC before their next meeting, with PSCOB hoping that their demands, backed by director Reid, will be acknowledged.
