Editorial: A new report offers a path to answers about racial profiling by police. Will Des Moines take it?
Recommendations in a new report, which echo earlier calls from activists on racial profiling and other issues, can help police build community trust.
Social justice advocates stood on the steps of Des Moines City Hall last week to urge action on the findings of a new report on law enforcement.
Wind blew their handwritten signs. A megaphone changed hands three times. After 11½ minutes, the news conference, with representatives of Iowa Citizens for CommunityImprovement, Just Voices and Des Moines Showing Up for Racial Justice, was done.
This brevity was symbolic of what the groups were asking of the City Council. Less talk and more action — action on things they’ve repeatedly requested over the past few years. Ending racial profiling. Ending pretextual traffic stops. Making marijuana a low-level enforcement priority. But the Des Moines Police Department won't concede the existence of problems that give rise to those suggestions. So activists have repeatedly requested that data be collected on all stops and made available to the public,a community review board be established, and a third-party investigation of DMPD be conducted.
“I hope that we, the public, will bring pressure to the City Council to take not only our recommendations,” said Laural Clinton, a member of Iowa CCI whose son experienced racial profiling by DMPD and won a settlement, "but the recommendations they paid $84,000 for to Public Works that said exactly what we told them for free.”
If Clinton sounds a bit prideful, it seems justified.
Des Moines can collect data to inform strategies
The report Clinton references was presented to council members at an April 27 work session. “This project originated with a wide array of concerns about the potential of racially disparate law and code enforcement in the city and people are eager to get the answer to what is the extent of that, if any,” said Eric Schnurer, founder and president of Public Works LLC, which conducted the study. “I’m not here to give you that answer. I’m here to give you an answer for this study.”
The 207-page document was condensed into 23 recommendations (pages 143 and 144), grouped by core attribute categories: Accountable, Analytic, Transparency and Actionable. The recommendations, all of which the advocacy groups had been asking for, include these areas:
Accountable
The DMPD collects limited data on stops that result in a warning, citation or arrest. Public Works recommends that officers collect data on all stops, capture race and gender, and add calls for service, crime/offense and use of force data.
Analytic
DMPD performs little analysis on data it collects. Public Works recommends the department establish and staff a Data Analysis Unit, analyze stop data, and produce an annual report for the public.
Transparency
Currently, the DMPD produces an annual Statistical Report of two or three pages. Public Works recommends a comprehensive “Annual State of Policing and Public Safety Report,” plus changes to the DMPD website to enable interactivity and allow the public to easily filter and analyze policing data.
Actionable
DMPD does not currently have a strategic plan. Public Works recommends creation of a three- to five-year strategic plan that includes a focus on data accountability, analytics, transparency, and actionability as stated in the Law Enforcement Data Report.
Just like the advocacy groups, Public Works also recommends creation of a Community Advisory and Review Board. The board would be made up of diverse community members, advocates and stakeholders and would “review and collaborate with DMPD on matters of public safety and community well-being.” Also recommended: a Behavioral and Mental Health Work Group “to inform ongoing data analysis and efficacy regarding crisis response and diversion efforts.”
What a citizen review board would do
In addition to reviewing investigations of police officer misconduct, a Community Advisory and Review Board would be a liaison between the police department and the community, eliciting and communicating community member concerns and working with the police department to address them.
Both Public Works and Des Moines advocacy groups point to Cedar Rapids as a local example. The City Council there in summer 2020 set in motion the creation of a board, at the request of a local social justice group. By February 2021, the board was established.
Jennifer Pratt, community development director for the city of Cedar Rapids, said she has not read the Law Enforcement Data Report but feels that part of the reason Cedar Rapids got a board established so quickly is that the request came after George Floyd’s murder.
“The fact that we were creating this as part of that national movement helped because both sides were sitting at the table thinking ‘How can we be better?’" Pratt said,
Pratt stressed that each city must create a solution that works for it: “The National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement was a valuable resource for us. We brought them in very early to help us identify, because I think, again, the thing that really helped us is we were looking at what is the best model for us.”
City should adopt report's ideas, not compromise on half-measures
In a separate development, Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert has said the DMPD plans to seek police department accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc.
An organization providing accreditation is not the third-party consultant that Des Moines advocacy groups want. They want an investigation.
“You've got over one and a half million dollars in lawsuit settlements paid out by the city of Des Moines for bad police behavior in the last five years,” said Lori Young, Iowa CCI member and director of communications for Just Voices. “You have female officers suing the police department for sexual harassment and discrimination. You have video evidence of excessive force during the 2020 protests and police brutality. You have disproportionate arrests of Black people for marijuana possession. You have racial profiling. Accreditation does nothing to address the issues.”
City Manager Scott Sanders said that his office and the police department need to work through the report and identify the items to be addressed and a timeline.
Hopefully, that doesn’t mean talking and relative inaction for years. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean picking some items that do little to address the concerns that prompted the report and discarding those that do.
Hopefully.
— Rachelle Chase on behalf of the Register editorial board
Next meeting
The Des Moines City Council is scheduled to discuss police-related matters at a work session Tuesday. It is expected to start at the conclusion of a 7:30 a.m. council meeting.