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The CPOA was created in its current iteration following a DOJ investigation that concluded in 2014 that APD officers had a pattern and practice of excessive use of force. The agency is required to review shootings and serious use of force by officers.

“If you believe, as the DOJ said in their findings, that there were times when a cursory review was done when an in-depth review was required then civilian review is the way to validate you didn’t do that,” said Joanne Fine, the CPOA board vice chairwoman. “What you’re assessing as a civilian is the quality of the investigation.”

Instead, for more than a year, the CPOA has only reviewed civilian complaints against officers. Although the more serious cases – including police shootings and serious use of force, such as the use of a Taser resulting in hospitalization – are not being reviewed by civilians, they are being seen by the independent monitor overseeing the APD reform effort, according to Ed Harness, the CPOA executive director.

Harness said he does not know how many cases are in the backlog, and neither an APD spokesman nor the city attorney’s office responded to multiple questions from the Journal.

The holdup lies with the Force Review Board – a panel of APD officials, the city attorney’s office and the CPOA executive director tasked with reviewing police shootings and serious use of force cases after the chain of command has looked at them. The FRB was also mandated in the court-approved settlement agreement between the city and the DOJ and initially it was decided that the CPOA would look at a case after the FRB finished its process.

“That is the system still in place,” Harness told the Journal.

However, in November 2017 the parties decided to overhaul the FRB and halted its work until that is completed.

Because the FRB has not been operational, the CPOA is also not getting new cases. The case discussed at the CPOA’s August 2018 meeting had already been reviewed by the FRB before it was halted, Harness said.

In response to vice chairwoman Fine’s questions at the last CPOA meeting, Lindsay Van Meter, a city attorney, said the new FRB procedures had been approved by the independent monitor and the DOJ this summer, but then the police department made further revisions, so it had to be approved again.

It’s unclear when the new policies will go into effect and when the CPOA will begin reviewing police shootings and cases of serious use of force.

Van Meter said there has been some discussion between the city and the DOJ about whether the FRB and CPOA should review the backlogged cases or just move on to new cases.

“Part of the reason the city believes it’s appropriate to not move forward with reviewing every one of those cases by the FRB is because of the serious look at those cases that has been done by the force investigations division,” Van Meter told the board. “Those cases have been thoroughly reviewed and have, of course, gone to the monitoring team to be reviewed as well.”

Fine strongly disagreed with this proposal.

“I would really object to the city drawing a line in the sand and saying we’ll go forward,” she said. “You can’t cut a big hole and say these are gone, these are history, at least not after you’ve delayed for two years.”