Six years after its creation by the South Bend Common Council, the city’s community police review process is still struggling to establish itself. The office is asking the council for changes making it easier to find and keep board members.
The board was unable to hold meetings multiple times over the past year because too few of its nine citizen members showed up On Monday the council will hear first reading on a bill offered by Office Director Charles King, easing some of the volunteer board members’ training requirements before they can start accessing case information and hearing and voting on police misconduct complaints.
Board members now must ride along with an officer for at least 12 hours before they start hearing and voting on cases to better understand the jobs police officers do. These ride-alongs would become recommended rather than required, and board members would only need to complete six hours of orientation before hearing cases. They’d have to complete at least 16 hours of training in their first year.
In a memo to the council, King says the changes are needed so that board members can start hearing cases sooner while they’re being trained. The changes also would make it harder for council members to remove board members for missing meetings.
