With Some Unclear About Their Roles, Community Police Oversight Commissioners Likely to Hold First Meeting in October

[UPDATED] With only a month before they formally meet for the first time, members of the Pasadena Community Police Oversight Commission said it is still unclear what role the citizen board will play and how it will operate.

The newly appointed commissioners made the admission in an online discussion with community members facilitated last Thursday by the Conversation Live and moderated by James Farr.

“It’s not really clear what the role is,” said Commissioner Esprit Jones. “It was kind of expressed that once we meet as a body, we [will] better understand then what our role is.”

“We still haven’t convened ourselves and determined for ourselves how we are going to operate, what our rhythm is going to be [and] what are the first items we are going to tackle,” said Commissioner Juliana Serrano. 

According to member Florence Annang, the Community Police Oversight Commission will likely hold its first meeting in October — a year since the ordinance establishing the commission’s framework was passed.

The commission was established after the officer-involved murder of Minneapolis motorist George Floyd ignited demonstrations in Pasadena and across the country.  

Members of the commission are expected to elect a chair and a vice-chair at its first meeting and develop an annual work plan.

The commission cannot take up cases being investigated by the city or the Police Department.

In addition, the commission will be required to obey all laws regarding personnel.

The ordinance that created the commission states that the role of the body is to strengthen community-police relations and review and make recommendations regarding ongoing operations of the Police Department to the chief of police and to the City Council. 

Among the functions of the commission, as stated in the ordinance, is to receive community feedback and complaints; monitor reports from the Police Department on hiring, training and promotions; monitor and publish statistics on complaints against the police; and provide input on the Police Department’s policy recommendations prior to adoption. 

Recently, the 11-member commission underwent 30 hours of training to learn about how the Police Department operates.

Besides the police training, the commissioners did not undergo any kind of training about the commission and being a commissioner, said Commissioner Raúl Ibañez. 

“The entire training was fully dedicated to learning information about the department, the different sections, the different personnel, the different purposes of each department, and how they work,” Ibañez said. 

Serrano, for her part, expressed hope that the police training will not be the only training commissioners will receive. 

“I am expecting that other commissioners will join in the call for us to collectively have training and education in other areas as well,” she said, further adding that the body needs diversity, equity and inclusion training as well as training about the history of the community’s experience with the police in Pasadena. 

Despite their admission, the commissioners asked the community to support them as they vowed to hold police accountable and to push for changes that would strengthen police and community relations and create safer interactions for communities that are most impacted by the police. 

“What we will need to do as a body is to work well together so that we can push our department to be a better Police Department.” Serrano said. “I ask the community to stand by our side as we embark on this journey knowing that we don’t know a lot yet.”

“Pasadena cannot go quiet. We have to keep our foot on the gas,” Commissioner Annang said. 

“Let them know that the community will be behind what they created,” Annang added as she reminded the public that the commission was created to address its clamor for oversight amid public outrage about racist incidents and police brutality in the city.