Bennington’s approach to reforming its police force will take too long and lacks diverse voices, according to the Rutland Area NAACP and the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The town has proposed forming a panel that would set the framework for a police oversight committee — a process that might not result in an actual oversight committee for another year.
A joint letter to the selectboard was read Monday by Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area NAACP, at a meeting held to allow public comment on the proposal.
The letter called the proposal “deeply flawed, including the lack of meaningful charge or stakeholder inclusion.”
The selectboard will continue to accept comments on the proposal through June 4, Jeannie Jenkins, selectboard chair, said during the video meeting.
“This is exactly the purpose of having public comment — for people to both give us their sense of what they’re reading and also show us where we’re missing things, where we’ve gotten it wrong, where they disagree or agree,” Jenkins said.
Schultz, reading from the letter, said the proposal to have a task force look at the creation of a police oversight committee is not necessary and squanders valuable time. A timeline with the proposal for “illustrative purposes only” provides until May 2022 to establish the police oversight panel.
It has already been more than a year since the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a report harshly criticizing the town’s police department, Schultz said.
That report found the department displayed a “warrior mentality,” fueling mistrust in the community, especially among marginalized communities. The report recommended the formation of a civilian oversight board, with representation from diverse populations of the community.
“Further delay in establishing actual civilian oversight, as envisioned in the proposed task force timeline, is unacceptable,” Schultz said.
“It has already been over a year since the International Association of Chiefs of Police recommended the creation of a civilian oversight board,” she said. “Leaving that recommendation unfulfilled for another year evinces a troubling lack of urgency to address the serious civil liberties and civil rights violations committed by Bennington’s police department.”
Also, earlier this month, a Vermont Human Rights Commission report concluded that the Bennington Police Department discriminated against Kiah Morris on the basis of her race. According to the report, the police department violated not only her rights, but also the rights of her family.
Morris, who was living in Bennington, was the only Black woman in the Vermont Legislature. She announced in 2018 that she would not seek re-election, in part because of racial harassment and the lack of appropriate police response.
The proposal before the selectboard calls for forming a panel to provide ”meaningful community involvement in safety and equity decision-making” and would likely include:
- Recommendations on police department training and community collaboration efforts.
- Review of complaints against the police department.
- Development and review of “proposed critical” department policies and procedures.
- Analysis of safety and equity data.
The proposal sets out a two-stop process — creating a task force to explore the name, charge, membership, structure and scope of the board, and then establishing the board.
Under the proposal, the 11 task force members would be Bennington residents with expertise and experience ranging from mental health and education to an active police officer and a member from the Black, Indigenous and people of color community.
Schultz raised concern with the proposed task force membership.
“Most importantly, the explicit inclusion of one BIPOC community member on the board is
tokenism at its worst,” Schultz said. “Any task force or board must include the local NAACP, multiple Black Bennington residents, and delegates of other racial justice groups and advocates, among other most impacted Benningtonians such as the unhoused and economically marginalized.”
Bruce Lee-Clark, a selectboard member, said he expected more than one BIPOC member on the task force.
“Yes, we identified making sure that there’s at least one BIPOC member of the committee,” Lee-Clark said, and “if a number of people of color or Indigenous folks apply and they can fit into any number of the categories, and we’ll encourage people to fit into as many as they deem able to, then there might be many BIPOC members of this committee.”
Jay Diaz, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Vermont, said Tuesday he hopes the Bennington Selectboard will take the comments from the organizations seriously.
“We think the board has an opportunity to change, to change course,” he said, “not waiting another year so that another committee can discuss the possibility of creating such a board.”
“It’s long past time for Bennington to take action,” Diaz said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: ACLU, NAACP call Bennington’s police oversight approach ‘deeply flawed’.