Miami-Dade’s Police Oversight Panel Inches Forward

The creation of the Independent Civilian Panel (ICP) was Commissioner Barbara Jordan’s last major legislative victory before leaving office. Tasked with investigating complaints and grievances filed against officers of the Miami-Dade Police Department, and reviewing policies within the MDPD, the ICP’s passage was an uphill battle that was only won in late August 2020 when Jordan agreed to give up the oversight board’s ability to subpoena county employees.

Still, the ICP was enshrined with a guaranteed budget of $750,000 in each of its first two years for an office, an executive director and staff. So far, it has none of those things. Staffing will likely be top on the ICP’s agenda when it holds its first meeting. That’s slated to happen Tuesday, Oct. 12 from 4-6 p.m. in the first-floor auditorium of the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library, located at 101 W Flagler St. Rodney Jacobs, assistant director of the City of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel, who consulted on the ICP’s creation, hopes a director is hired before the end of the year – that is where he’s pinning the panel’s success.

“Whoever is hired as director will be the lifeline of the department,” he explained. That director will be hiring the investigators and staffers who “will be the ones who do the work.” Plus, a good executive director can “make sure panel members work cohesively together.”

But what sort of dynamic that panel will have is uncertain after Miami-Dade commissioners recently eliminated rules designed to guarantee its integrity.

In an effort to keep the panel from becoming too political, the ordinance creating the ICP included a provision that allowed for panel applicants to be vetted by a nominating committee assembled by nine county boards. Unfortunately, because one of those boards – the Interfaith Advisory Committee – never established quorum, the nominating committee has yet to be assembled, causing a delay in appointments. The newly amended ICP ordinance eliminates the nominating committee entirely.

The ICP also was originally supposed to have just two people with the “same or similar” professional backgrounds. Part of the reason for that rule was to avoid packing a panel that reviews police complaints and procedures with, well, police. But on Sept. 1, that also changed with a Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners vote of 9-4.

A Potential Blow to Impartiality

The entire flap began because four commissioners wanted to appoint lawyers, not cops, which created even more delays in filling board vacancies. After considerable debate and no agreement on what to do, Commissioner Joe A. Martinez said there was a simple solution: let county commissioners appoint whomever they want.

After debating other proposals, Commissioner Sally Heyman gave in.

“We are going against the original intent. If that’s the will of the [county commission], fine. I don’t care about the stacking one way or the other,” she said. “I would like to see a body created.”

Rossana Arteaga-Gomez, ACLU Miami chapter president, worried that the change could allow the appointment of several people with law enforcement backgrounds. Should that happen, the ICP would “no longer appear to be as independent or as civilian as intended,” she stated in an email to the Biscayne Times.

“It will bear too close a resemblance to a police department’s internal affairs division with all of its attendant problems,” Arteaga-Gomez wrote. “This will weaken the core purpose of the panel – to provide for independent and impartial community oversight of the police and give the community confidence that grievances against sworn officers will be fairly investigated.”

It isn’t just the ACLU that is concerned.

In an email, Commissioner Keon Hardemon stated: “I believe that the amended ordinance opens the door for gross partiality in favor of police officers instead of encouraging impartial [arbiters] of justice.”

Hardemon and three other Black Miami-Dade County Commissioners – Oliver Gilbert III, Jean Monestime and Kionne McGhee – cast the dissenting votes.

Stacking the deck in the hands of law enforcement won’t happen in the short term. Of those 13 members nominated, only two have law enforcement backgrounds. Luis Fernandez, a former City of Miami police officer who now works as an investigator for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office was appointed by County Commission Chairman José “Pepe” Diaz, and retired Miami-Dade Police Maj. Ray Melcon was appointed by Martinez.

However, four randomly selected members of the inaugural ICP will have staggered terms of just one year. Four other members will have terms of just two years. The remaining five will serve for three years.

Panel Director is Key

“Right now, I am happy that [ICP is] moving forward to some extent,” said Jacobs.

He admitted it’s disappointing that the nominating committee was never assembled and the clause mandating occupational diversity was taken out. Nevertheless, he said “the real hill to die on” is hiring a good executive director.

“We want to make sure we have good panel members, but at the end of the day, the director and staff are the most important,” Jacobs said.

He added that it isn’t even necessarily a bad thing if there are more than two police officers on the panel.

“It’s important to have [at least one] retired police officer on the panel,” Jacobs asserted. “The concern for the general committee was that all the appointments would be police officers.”

Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, said it’s only fair that the actions of police be evaluated by police officers. After all, doctors are overseen by other doctors, and lawyers are overseen by other lawyers, he opined. As for the panel someday being dominated by law enforcement, Stahl said he doubted it.

“I do not believe the board is going to be filled with a bunch of cops,” he said.

Stahl also shared that the police union won’t lobby commissioners to appoint police as board members either. Instead, the PBA will urge police officers not to testify at future ICP meetings.

“I see no value to it,” Stahl said about the ICP. “The police are the most regulated profession in the state. We have 22 different agencies, the state attorney’s office, the inspector general, the ethics board, [supervisors] … This is just another layer to it. I’m not sure why it’s needed.”

Besides investigating and holding hearings on police abuse, Jacobs said the City of Miami’s independent civilian panel has helped with Department of Justice investigations into the MPD, craft body-worn camera orders, start the state’s first face-to-face mediation program that allows police officers and members of the public to resolve simple disputes, and other programs.

Jacobs believes that the county’s ICP can do much to make policing better for everyone, including the cops. But for that to happen, a certain level of cooperation is needed.

No Meetings, No Action

The county had an oversight board for 29 years. Called the Independent Review Panel, it was formed in 1980 following the McDuffie riots, which broke out after four Dade County police officers were acquitted of beating insurance agent Arthur McDuffie to death during a traffic stop. The IRP was tasked with reviewing the operations of the MDPD, and examining complaints against police and county employees. In its last year of existence, IRP staff reviewed 360 police-related complaints while the IRP board held public hearings on 24 complaints about issues that included racial profiling, according to published reports. It was eliminated by former Giménez.

In the years that followed, Jordan pushed for the recreation of the oversight board. Her quest to reform the IRP was supported by the NAACP and the ACLU but was often opposed by the MDPD director, the South Florida PBA and several conservative commissioners, including Diaz, Martinez and Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, all of whom are now term-limited from office.

Along with a new life and a new name, the ICP will be entirely focused on investigating police actions.

“One of the reasons our coalition sought to change the name is that it will do more than ‘review,’ it will also investigate!” ACLU of Florida board member Jeanne Baker explained.

Now all they need is to start meeting.