Long Beach voters have a few City Charter amendment measures to consider this November — but perhaps the most significant change that could be on the way relates to the Police Department.
The City Council last week approved placing a charter amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot that, if approved, would alter the city’s existing police oversight body, the Citizen Police Complaint Commission. The changes, city officials say, would, in turn, help create long-sought reforms in the Police Department’s operations.
The CPCC, established via a charter amendment 30 years ago, has faced criticism from Long Beach’s Black and Latino communities — who, in recent years, have argued that the commission is ineffective, consistently sides with LBPD officers and has failed to address systemic racism in policing.
Those calls for police reform in Long Beach culminated in 2020, when thousands marched through the city to demand justice — and an end to systemic racism — after a Black man, George Floyd, was murdered by police in Minneapolis.
A month later, Long Beach declared racism a public health crisis — in a resolution that acknowledged systemic racism citywide and within the Police Department.
In Long Beach, the June 23, 2020, resolution said, 44% of people arrested for cannabis enforcement were Black — despite that group making up only 13% of the city’s population.
There were 191 use-of-force complaints filed against LBPD officers from 2015 to 2019, and Long Beach had spent more than $31 million to settle allegations of excessive police force lawsuits since January 2014, the resolution said.
Police Department officials, for their part, have previously said back oversight, while also stressing that the city’s law-enforcement agency has made significant progress compared to decades ago.
The department, in a previous statement, said it supports “oversight that is fair, objective and constitutional.”
“Our community and the law enforcement profession has drastically changed since the CPCC’s inception 30 years ago,” former LBPD police Chief Robert Luna, who is now running for Los Angeles County sheriff, said before he retired late last year. “The Police Department, along with the city of Long Beach, understands the need to evaluate how we currently police to ensure that our practices are reflective of the values of our community and our organization.”
Luna, who in 2014 became the city’s first Latino police chief, had in the past noted how when he started with LBPD more than three decades ago, he was one of the few Latino officers on the force. Latino officers represented 40% of the department’s overall population of sworn employees in 2020, the same year the agency banned the carotid restraint. That year also saw LBPD mandate reverence for life in its revised use-of-force policy.
Luna’s successor, Chief Wally Hebeish, has also discussed ensuring LBPD continually improves — or, as he said in a January interview, “evolves.” When asked how he would work to achieve those goals, Hebeish listed oversight among the necessary stategies.
“Pushing forward on training, investing in training that’s relevant today and evaluating everything we’re doing,” he said. “Investing in the Office of Constitutional Policing, allowing it to grow and allowing that office to evaluate our processes and guide us moving forward as a Police Department.”
Luna’s and Hebeish’s comments came amid a renewed and so-far-sustained national focus on systemic racisim, with city officials pledging to better support marginalized communities — and, more specifically, to reform the LBPD’s hiring and disciplinary practices.
To do so, Long Beach has embarked on the lengthy process of revamping the CPCC.
Last year, Long Beach commissioned a $150,000 third-party evaluation of the commission by Polis Solutions and the Change Integration Consulting team, which found that the CPCC’s structure put inherent limitations on its authority — and undermined its ability to hold the Police Department accountable.
“The current model as structured,” the final report, released in February, said, “does not meet the city’s or the community’s calls for increased transparency, accountability and input on addressing broader organizational culture issues within the Long Beach Police Department.”
That’s largely because the City Manager’s Office currently has final say on disciplinary action taken against LBPD officers, the report said — regardless of what the CPCC recommends.
“Some internal and external stakeholders voiced concern that conflicts could arise given that the Police Department, Internal Affairs, and the CPCC all report into the City Manager’s Office,” the report said, “particularly since CPCC is intended to be an independent oversight entity.”
There are several types of independent police oversight commissions — review-focused, investigation-focused and auditor/monitor-focused among them — ranging in their ability to investigate police actions and influence departmental policy change.
Review-focused police oversight commissions are the most common model in the United States, according to the report. These commissions typically consist of civilian or non-law enforcement affiliated individuals who review misconduct complaint investigation quality.
These boards are less likely to have full access to a police department’s records and only about a third of currently operating review boards have subpoena power, limiting their ability to thoroughly investigate misconduct complaints.
The investigation-focused models tend to be staffed by professionally trained investigators, who have greater access to police agency data and tend to have subpoena power. Though a majority of these bodies investigate external complaints, the report said, some take over the role of internal affairs entirely.
And in the auditor/monitor-focused approach, the oversight commission has the authority to review a wide range of police policies and have greater access to police records, data and personnel.
These types of commissions serve as a watchdog rather than an active investigative body, the report said.
“Most auditor/monitor oversight programs focus on ensuring complaint investigations overall are done objectively, thoroughly, and in a timely manner,” the report said, “rather than handling individual investigations themselves.”
As it stands, the current CPCC structure most closely resembles an investigative-focused model — with some aspects of the review-focused model, according to the report.
But the CPCC lacks overarching access to LBPD records, data and personnel — despite having subpoena power in its investigative arsenal.
“While CPCC does issue subpoenas for information from the LBPD,” the report said, “it has not sought to enforce any subpoena in the face of routine delay in production or outright refusal to produce certain types of information.”
LBPD officers, the report said, have not been required to undergo interviews with the CPCC and statements from officers collected by internal affairs were only provided as of January 2021. The majority of the statements to internal affairs, the report said, are not transcribed.
“Counsel from the City Attorney’s Office recently indicated a willingness to pursue subpoena enforcement, though others have opined that enforcement is not possible,” the report said. “Thus, it is not clear if the lack of enforcement is a function of what is essentially ‘toothless’ authority under the Charter Amendment or represents a long-established norm of not requiring the LBPD to comply with CPCC subpoenas.”
The CPCC also struggles to complete investigations in a timely manner, the report found, partly because of“the lack of timeliness of IA investigations,” the report said.
The report also found there is no online process to file a complaint against an LBPD officer, the public does not receive frequent or clear contact from the CPCC regarding the status of filed complaints, and the commissioners were not broadly representative of the Long Beach community as dictated by the city charter.
The solution, Polis and Change Integration said, lies in a hybrid approach to police oversight that would include aspects of all three models.
The mixed approach “holds the most reliable promise for enhancing police/community trust in Long Beach by emphasizing the importance of collaboration between the LBPD and oversight program,” the report said, “and recognizing the importance of community engagement and input in policing.”
Under the proposed charter amendment — if approved by the City Council on Tuesday, and Long Beach voters in November — the city would select a police oversight director to work alongside a seven-person oversight commission.
The Police Oversight Director position, outlined in a May 24 draft charter amendment, would essentially serve in the same capacity as any other city department head.
The director’s tasks would include, according to a draft charter amendment released by the city manager’s office on May 24:
- Auditing the LBPD’s Internal Affairs division complaint investigations, with access to body camera footage and officer interviews;
- Investigating specific issues — including complaints against the Police Chief or Command staff — when requested or approved by the City Manager’s office;
- Accessing all relevant evidence with the authority to question all witnesses, including LBPD officers; and
- Reviewing all major use of force incidents and visit the scene of critical incidents
That person would be appointed by a majority City Council vote, according to the draft amendment, and would serve an indefinite term. The director, if necessary, could be removed by a vote of five council members — subject to a mayoral veto or two-thirds council-vote override.
“That gives that person quite a bit of autonomy when they’re only answering to the council,” City Attorney Charles Parkin said in an Aug. 4 interview.
The commission, on the other hand, would provide input to and approve actions brought by the oversight director, conduct community engagement and education, and receive briefings on high-profile incidents.
Commissioners would be appointed by the Long Beach mayor to a four-year term — subject to council confirmation — the draft said, capped at no more than two consecutive terms.
Several other cities have implemented similar police oversight systems, including Anaheim and Oakland.
Neither the proposed oversight director nor the commission, though, would have subpoena power, Parkin said — which some advocates of such oversight argue is a crucial component of fostering accountability.
The new model, Parkin said, will not be investigation-focused like the CPCC — but will primarily focus on auditing misconduct investigations conducted by LBPD’s Internal Affairs division from start to finish.
“While they may not have subpoena power,” Parkin said in an Aug. 4 interview, “we think that this is going to obviously be helpful because the director would be able to audit the completed investigations for the timeliness and thoroughness of the and the quality of the work.”
Some have criticized the proposed charter amendment for removing that subpoena power despite that explanation, though — including former CPCC chairman and current Councilman Al Austin, who brought the initial motion to reform the commission forward.
The council voted to place send the charter amendment on the November ballot during its Aug. 9 regular session meeting — but not before a lengthy debate, largely propagated by Austin, who voiced concerns that the proposed changes wouldn’t result in any improvement to police oversight or accountability.
“It certainly is not a perfect commission — there were a lot of frustrations about the lack of power, lack of transparency and lack of authority to make a real difference,” Austin said during the meeting. “I want to be clear, I support civilian oversight — (but) nothing convinces me that this is going to change or add the public competence that we’re looking to.”
Austin said that the lack of funding and staffing for the commission were to blame for its ineffectiveness as outlined in the Polis report — not any issues with its authority under the current City Charter.
“The staffing of that commission significantly reduced,” in recent years, Austin said, “and the effectiveness of that commission was reduced as a result of that.”
He also argued that the new proposed model doesn’t involve Long Beach residents enough — instead creating “another high paid department head who’s accountable to the Council.”
Instead, Austin posited a motion that would compel Long Beach to revamp the administrative abilities of the existing CPCC — without changing any of its authorities outlined in the city charter. Those changes, the councilmember said, would include increased funding and staffing for the existing commission.
But after much debate, Austin’s substitute motion failed to garner a majority of votes — and the City Council ultimately decided to leave the proposed CPCC reforms up to voter discretion.
Though the proposed charter amendment would shift the CPCC’s focus to auditing Internal Affairs investigations, as opposed to conducting its own, the new oversight director could still investigate independently in some cases. Those would include any complaints filed against the Police Chief or command staff, Parkin said, along with officer-involved shootings or in-custody civilian deaths.
“That’s pretty limited — and that would be upon the request of the city manager,” Parkin said, noting that the city manager wouldn’t have “any control over the investigation” once it’s started.
“I’d imagine that their bosses (the City Council) are going to want those investigated,” Parkin added. “We are trying to do what the report asked us to do.”
A majority of Long Beach residents, according to recent city polling, are in favor of the proposed changes to the CPCC.
The city contracted with FM3 Research, a California-based policy research firm, to survey residents about the potential ballot measures ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Data was collected over the phone and online from July 2 through July 10, the report said. 898 voters likely to participate in the general election were interviewed in both English and Spanish, according to the data.
About 6 in 10 people support the charter amendment, according to a July 29 memo, with the other third in opposition.
The proposed charter amendment will ultimately be decided by Long Beach voters during the general election in November. Voter-approval would allow the city to move forward with establishing the oversight commission, selecting its members, and approving an operating budget.
The proposed commission’s estimated budget, as of July 19, is just over $1.4 million. That includes funding to hire about 4.5 new full-time employees to the new oversight office.
The City Council’s vote — aside from placing the proposed amendment on the ballot — also directs city staff to allocate funds in Long Beach’s proposed fiscal year 2023 to better support the CPCC, regardless of whether the charter amendment passes in November.
If voters opt not to approve the charter amendment, though, the CPCC’s duties and authority will remain unchanged — and any major revamps to its operations will have to wait until the next general election in 2024.
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