Petaluma Police hear residents concerns

Th Petaluma Police Department has increased outreach to the communities it serves in an effort to build trust among residents and prevent crime. A round of town hall meetings scheduled over the next two weeks comes as the nation deals with a rash of officer-involved shootings. It also comes as a county task force prepares a final report on law enforcement oversight and transparency in the wake of the shooting death of a Santa Rosa teen at the hands of a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy.

Caluha Barnes, a staff member of the Sonoma County Law Enforcement Task Force, told the Petaluma City Council last week that a change is needed in basic police procedures.

“There has been a breakdown of trust between many communities and law enforcement,” Barnes said. “Law enforcement must find alternatives to the use of force. Not every encounter is life threatening.”

The task force is charged with exploring the creation of a citizen review body, establishing a model for community policing, separating the county Coroner’s Office from the Sheriff’s Office and hearing community feedback. It is expected to make its recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on May 12.

“A civil grand jury is not an appropriate model for the role of civilian oversight,” Barnes said. “We need to create an independent auditor that will include a citizens’ advisory committee, as well as a youth council.”

The task force was formed after the Oct. 22, 2013 shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a sheriff’s deputy on Moorland Avenue in Santa Rosa. Lopez was carrying a BB gun that the deputy mistook for a real weapon.

Councilman Gabe Kearney said that Petaluma had been engaged in community policing efforts for years.

“I think our community policing efforts in Petaluma work well,” he said.

Councilman Mike Healy said he problems were “primarily a county sheriff’s department issue” and added that “we are proud of our police department.”

“It is not self-evident that we have the same problems as the sheriff’s department,” Healy said.

City manager John Brown said the Petaluma Police Department was actively engaged with the community.

“We are already doing many of the things discussed by the task force, including community policing,” said Brown. “We’ve always felt that more engagement with the community would create a higher likelihood that tragedies like the Lopez shooting would not happen here.”

Barnes praised Petaluma’s community policing efforts, and said the task force’s two-year process focused on bias within law enforcement towards minority communities.

“People - all of us - operate from a place of bias, often times unconscious bias, towards others,” said Barnes. “That must always be checked. Inherent in this task forces’ recommendations to the Supervisors is that we need to work and eat away at this bias.”

Barnes said the task forces findings were “unequivocal” that the shooting of Andy Lopez would “not have happened in a white area.”

“This creates a sense of angst in a community of unfairness on the part of law enforcement,” Barnes said. “Statistically, more arrests are made in minority communities for marijuana possession than elsewhere. Our goal is to restore the sense of fairness and trust in minority communities towards law enforcement.”

A key finding of the task force is the establishment of an independent citizen review board with a scope of authority to investigate law enforcement including the right to subpoena documents and witnesses.

On the issue of separating the County Coroner’s office from the Sheriff’s Office, Barnes said that there was an “inherent conflict of interest” between the two offices.

(Contact E. A. Barrera at argus@arguscourier.com.)