By Caleb Bedillion
Daily Journal
TUPELO – A panel of local citizens and city officials formally recommended on Tuesday that an advisory board be created to enhance communication between community members and the police department.
As outlined before the City Council during a Tuesday afternoon work session, this advisory board would not independently investigate allegations of police misconduct.
It therefore falls short of police reform measures recommended by local community leaders and activists.
The Tupelo advisory would instead, according to a written recommendation document, be “a liaison between the community and the police department to help promote community awareness, understanding and involvement of police programs and services.”
The advisory board would also “assist the police department with strategic planning and goals, and recommend strategies for the future.”
The advisory board would be composed of nine voting members: seven appointed from each ward by that ward’s council representative and two appointed by the mayor.
The recommendations offered Tuesday also call for three non-voting members: a City Council member, a police department representative and a member of the Mayor’s Youth Council.
Members of the advisory board would be required to complete the Citizen’s Police Academy offered by the city police department.
Some in the Tupelo community have periodically called for a citizen review board to have oversight of the police department.
Calls for such a board resurfaced and intensified over the summer after a Tupelo police officer shot Antwun “Ronnie” Shumpert, allegedly during an altercation.
Across the nation, civil rights advocates have touted independent citizen review panels as a way to increase accountability for law enforcement departments.
These review boards differ widely. In some cities, boards use full-time investigators to mount independent probes of alleged police misconduct. Other boards only monitor or review a police department’s own internal investigations.
The recommendation document offered Tuesday to the Tupelo City Council indicates no investigative role for a Tupelo advisory board.
City officials have also indicated that an advisory board would have no access to employee files or to internal investigation reports.
However, three members of the 14-person committee that recommended a police advisory board opposed any kind of board.
Pete Sims, a community member appointed to the advisory board working group by Councilman Markel Whittington, presented this minority view to the council Tuesday.
Sims noted that no city of Tupelo’s size in the southeast appears to have a review or advisory board for the police department.
He said a police advisory board would be “really unaccountable” by virtue of being appointed rather than elected.
According to Sims, the City Council, as well as the office of mayor, offer sufficient means of overseeing the police department.
If any problems do exist within the department, Sims believes correctives should originate from the council and mayor rather than citizen volunteers.
The creation of an advisory board would require the approval of the City Council. Mayor Jason Shelton is expected to formally request council action on the matter during a council meeting next week, but an actual council vote on the issue is not expected at that time.
No timeline has been offered by which council members might discuss and deliberate on the matter.
caleb.bedillion@journalinc.com
Twitter: @CalebBedillion