WV ACLU: State Has To Oversee Small Police Departments
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
December 31, 2009
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - In October, Montgomery police officer Matthew Leavitt pleaded guilty to two charges resulting from a traffic stop of a bi-racial couple last fall. It's the type of problem that has legislators considering a state entity for police oversight.
One of the reasons, according to West Virginia ACLU executive director Frank Crabtree, is that most of the state's police departments are too small to have internal affairs departments, so he says the state has to take on that role.
"They barely have resources to do policing and certainly don't have an internal affairs investigatory body. So, the state would do investigations on its own hook."
He says the state also should have the power to review internal investigations by the larger departments. Crabtree says if the state puts a police oversight board in place, it has to be independent and properly empowered and funded if it is to have any credibility.
"Ideally, that board would have investigatory power, and resources that it could rely on, to basically build a review from the ground up."
Police usually resist the establishment of external oversight, but many police chiefs say independent boards help them maintain public trust.