As readers may be aware, the city of Derby is in the process of rewriting its charter.
Having seen the invitation to contribute to the process on Facebook via letter, I took the opportunity to write a kind and reasoned proposal asking for some reforms.
I am asking that commissions in town such as the police and fire commission either be democratically elected or made more diverse so that they look more like the town they represent.
In addition to writing I attended the charter revision meeting via zoom and learned several facts about Derby’s current charter:
1) To be a police officer you need a two year associate’s degree.
2) To be police chief you need to be a lieutenant in the department and have an associates degree. There is no competitive process. There is no requirement to compete with a pool of candidates outside the department for the role.3) The police and fire departments in Derby are accountable to no one save the mayor and the commission he or she himself appoints. There is no civilian oversight and no elected board.
I was struck by how dismissive the committee was of a call to change the makeup of the police commission. I noted that the person on the committee who was most vocal on these issues was connected to the police and fire department.
During the committee’s response to my requests I was also told that our fire department was world class, and provided amazing services to the town, and was essentially free. I was also told “we don’t want people who don’t know about law enforcement serving on a police commission.”
Consider almost every other profession in the nation. Corporations are accountable to shareholders. Teachers are accountable to school boards. Doctors are accountable to review boards and malpractice law. Why are police officers no different?
Police and fire departments do not not have a democratically elected commission overseeing them, although many assume they do. In fact, there is zero democratic accountability for policemen and firemen in the city of Derby. This is intentional, and organized this way as a matter of city charter.
This writer might not have written this letter, save for what occurred after leaving the meeting. After being told that concerns were misplaced, and the fire department was upheld as a specific example to show why I had no legitimate concerns because it was word class, I read this about Fire Chief of Derby.
The chief of our fire department had taken to Facebook in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests to argue that the military should call in “Black Hawk helicopters and snipers” to deal with the mostly black and brown protesters enraged at the unjust policing of their communities. That someone connected to my town’s fire and police services was calling for the assassination of Americans from the air was chilling.
We clearly need professionals and competent community leaders of diverse backgrounds to oversee the work of our police and fire departments.
The time has come for every town to reflect. Intelligent people are calling for police reforms. The reforms are not arcane and difficult to understand. One of the reforms we are calling for is civilian oversight of police. The Derby Charter must be revised accordingly.
Emre Akter
Derby
