Thomas Gounley

TGOUNLEY@NEWS-LEADER.COM

Editor's note: This story originally published on April 10, 2016.

Between 7 and 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 16, police received four calls for service at the west Springfield motel-turned-apartment complex where Frances Gill and her husband William Quinetti lived.

At some point during that period, Gill and her husband, both 63, became fed up with their neighbors, she said, and decided to head elsewhere for a few hours.

When they returned, Gill glanced at the surveillance camera by her front door. Its lens was covered by a piece of black tape, she said. The door's peephole was similarly obscured.

Confused, Gill went into her unit and played back the video. Here's what she saw: Two police officers approached her door. They knocked. Waited. Knocked again. One officer brought his face close to the camera, as if trying to look through it. Then the tape.

Gill made a formal complaint about the incident to the Springfield Police Department. That prompted an internal investigation. Three months later, the department sent Gill a letter explaining the outcome.

In an interview earlier this month, Gill told the News-Leader she isn't satisfied with the department's decision — and plans to do something that is relatively rare. She'll be appealing the matter to the city's Police Civilian Review Board.

"Somebody could have broken in with that tape on there and we wouldn't have known who came in or anything, because when the police left, they left the tape on there ... I don't know why they do something like that to a citizen," Gill said.

The all-volunteer review board was established in 1999 to provide a degree of citizen input when police conduct was called into question. But in recent years — a period in which, nationally, activities by police have come under close scrutiny — Springfield's board has had little to review. On Tuesday, the board met for the first time since August 2014.

The board only meets when a complaint is appealed to it, and the body's relative lack of workload recently can be seen as a positive. But some in the community believe the root cause is more concerning. Christal Mercado, a criminal justice student at Ozarks Technical Community College, began researching the board earlier this year for a paper she wanted to write.

“I don’t think the citizens understand that they’re there,” Mercado said.

Police Chief Paul Williams said last week that he revitalized the review board, and the complaint process is working well. Following a News-Leader inquiry, however, he did find one change he wants to make, which could raise the board's profile.

A complaint comes in

Complaints involving Springfield police can be made in person, online, by phone or by mail. They can be made anonymously, or by a third party. They can be initiated by department employees (those complaints are categorized as "administrative") and by general citizens.

When a complaint comes in, it is ultimately classified by Williams into one of several categories.

Those that Williams believes don't merit an internal investigation are classified as "miscellaneous." That includes complaints that revolve around the guilt or innocence of an involved citizen (that's up to the courts), those that don't actually make a claim of wrongdoing (some people just seem to be venting, Williams said) and those that involve a different law enforcement agency (say, the Greene County Sheriff's Office).

Some citizen complaints are classified as "CCRP," which refers to those resolved through what's called the Citizen Complaint Resolution Process. That process, in place for about five years, allows the complainant to speak to the involved employee and his or her supervisor confidentially. Complaints resolved this way don't result in disciplinary action.

Finally, the most serious allegations are classified as Class I or Class II complaints. Examples of these are lack of service, improper procedure, bias-based policing, excessive use of force and discourtesy, according to the department.

Between 2013 and 2015, according to department annual reports, there were between seven and 16 Class I complaints annually, and between four and 10 less-severe Class II complaints. But those figures only includes complaints made by citizens. Counting administrative complaints as well, Williams said, there have been about 30 to 35 Class I or II complaints annually.

It's unclear how Gill's complaint about tape obscuring her security camera was originally classified; Williams declined to comment on specific complaints.

The department investigates

Class I and Class II complaints prompt an internal investigation. Police department staff report their findings up the chain of command. Williams then rules in one of five ways:

The allegation can be "sustained," which means it is true and disciplinary action is taken

The allegation can be "not sustained," which means it was neither proven or disproven by the investigation. No disciplinary action is taken.

The allegation can be "unfounded," which means it did not happen. No disciplinary action is taken.

The involved employee can be "exonerated," which means the allegation is true, but the employee was acting in accordance with policy and his or her actions were justified. No disciplinary action is taken.

The allegation can also be the result of a policy failure. This category is essentially the same as "exonerated," with the addition that Williams recommends a policy change. It's a departmental failure, Williams said, not an employee failure. No disciplinary action is taken.

Williams' rulings are clear in Gill's case. In a "complainant disposition letter" dated March 23 and obtained by the News-Leader, Sergeant Randall Rager, head of the Inspections and Special Affairs Unit, stated that the two officers involved were Aaron Ramsey and Evan Nicholson.

Upon review, Rager wrote, the allegation of "improper procedure" against Ramsey was sustained. But both Ramsey and Nicholson were exonerated regarding the allegation of "conduct unbecoming an officer."

Gill sent an email to Rager, asking if that meant Ramsey was being disciplined. Yes, Rager wrote. Gill asked how. I can't tell you that, Rager wrote.

The department maintains that discipline is a personnel matter, and thus cannot be disclosed to be the public. It also maintains that investigative reports into complaints involving its employees are not a public record.

The News-Leader has requested, under Missouri Sunshine Law, all complaint disposition letters mailed since the start of 2013, as well as copies of the original complaints filed during that period that were ultimately classified as Class I or II.

History of civilian board

Springfield's review board was established in 1999, and heard its first complaint the next year. The board's five members are appointed by City Council for three-year terms. The terms for two of the board's current members expire May 1, although one is eligible for reappointment.

The board reviews only those complaints that are appealed by complainants after they are informed of the results of the internal investigation. The board essentially comments to Williams and City Manager Greg Burris on whether it feels the internal investigation was sufficient or not, and whether Williams' ruling was appropriate.

If the board decides the answer to either of those questions is no, nothing necessarily changes. The board only comments; it doesn't have the power to mandate.

Civilian involvement in complaints regarding the police varies by jurisdiction. Many cities do not have a civilian board at all. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, all complaints involving police go to a civilian oversight agency, the Office of Community Complaints. The civilian staff members there are the ones who decide whether the complaint merits an internal investigation by the police department.

In its first two years after being established, Springfield's Police Civilian Review Board reviewed 14 complaints, according to a 2002 News-Leader story.

But it didn't take too long for the criticism of the board itself to appear. In the 2002 story, a former police sergeant who'd complained about alleged lack of service called the board "a dog and pony show," while the then-board chair countered, saying "we don't feel like puppets." By that point, the one time the board had found shortcomings with an internal decision, the chief and city manager elected not to change anything.

Williams was sworn in as chief in July 2010. He told the News-Leader Thursday that "one of the directives" he had from the city manager and City Council at that time "was to re-energize and re-institute the Police Civilian Review Board."

"It had fallen into a state of suspended animation; it was inactive," he said. "There weren't enough members to meet; they weren't addressing complaints, and there were a couple that had been sitting there six months or a year that had not been addressed."

A requirement for serving on the board had always been to go through the Citizens Police Academy, Williams said. But the academy hadn't been held for several years.

"I had to re-institute the police academy, which we were going to do anyway," Williams said. "We did that in 2011, and then, every academy since then, I've encouraged people who go through that who want to get involved to apply for and serve in various capacities; one of those is in the Police Civilian Review Board. They really ramped back up in 2012 ... historically, I don't think they'd met for three to four years before that."

Chief: Letter wording will change

The four members of the review board who attended Tuesday's meeting — Dwayne Black, Bruce Menzies, Lynne Mitchell and James Williams — declined to comment for this story.

Mercado didn't end up writing a paper for her policing class about the review board. She found a different topic when, after reaching out to board members and the police department, she got little more than terse statements from city attorney Amanda Callaway.

“The city makes it impossible to get any info," Mercado said. "They make you feel like you’re doing something wrong if you ask about it.”

One board member did tell Mercado that the board had reviewed one complaint in the past three years. "I couldn't believe it," said Mercado, who has gone so far as to create a Facebook page with a report on how she feels the board should be set up.

“If we can’t have a successful one, there’s no reason to pretend like we have one,” Mercado said.

In one email, Callaway told Mercado the letter complainants receive detailing the results of the department's internal investigation "explains ... the appeal process to the Police Civilian Review Board."

But the letter Gill received only states the address where a written appeal can be sent, and that the appeal needs to be filed within 45 days. It says nothing about where the appeal goes, and doesn't actually contain the phrase "Police Civilian Review Board."

Williams said Thursday that he believes that section of the letter needs to be expanded.

"That is true and accurate, and that's its address ... But I really think we should flesh that out more," Williams said. "When I have an officer who's been disciplined, there's a couple paragraphs in there about how they can appeal that or aggrieve that discipline, really stepping out the process."

He said the letter should name the board and explain its advisory role.

"This is one of those things that nobody's brought to my attention, so I haven't had a chance to look at it," Williams said. "But I've looked at it now, and we're going add that in there."

Williams said generally, however, that he believes the review board is operating well. Of the 30 to 35 Class I and Class II complaints he estimated prompt an internal investigation each year, about half result in the original allegation sustained, he said.

The civilian board reviewed five complaints in 2012, the year Williams said it was working through a backlog. It reviewed two complaints in 2013, one in August 2014 and none in 2015. Tuesday's meeting — which did not relate to Gill's complaint — was the first time the board met in 2016.

“I think that says a couple things," Williams said. "One, the public’s pretty happy with what we do; we don’t get a lot of complaints, period. Two, when we get them, we take them very seriously, investigate them thoroughly. And three, when we’re done, people are generally happy with the resolution of the complaint process.”

Complainant: I'm planning to sue city

Gill said she doesn't just plan to appeal her complaint to the review board. She also is talking with an attorney about a lawsuit against the city.

"I'm definitely going to take it to court, because that's not right," Gill said. "It's not against the law, but it's against my civil rights."

Williams declined to comment on individual complaints.

Speaking generally, however, he said that investigations generally turn up more information than is known at first.

"There is a lot more information that generally is discovered about something, and, in general, snippets of videos or interviews or comments in media or social media generally don't tell the whole story, whether that's involving officers or citizens, criminal complaints or administrative complaints," Williams said. "So I always wait until I have all the facts and have interviewed every person and have provided information and have all that gathered together before making a decision."

Current board members

These are the current members of Springfield's Police Civilian Review Board, along with the date upon which their term expires:

Dwayne Black (chair) — May 2017

Paul Kalapathy (vice chair) — May 2018

Bruce Menzies — May 2016

Lynne Mitchell — May 2016

James K. Williams — May 2018