Council hopefuls were asked about the creation of a citizen review board.
Columbia City Council candidates spoke about the relationship between police and minorities at Tuesday night’s forum held by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Audience members passed in index cards with questions for the Third and Fourth Ward candidates. Many of the cards dealt with relationships between residents and the Columbia Police Department, specifically the creation of a citizen review board designed to oversee complaints against officers.
Fourth Ward candidates Mike Holden and Jerry Wade said they would not make final statements about a review board until they heard the results of an assessment done by a consultant hired by the city.
Holden said he wants to ask the consultant how civilian review boards are handled in other cities the same size as Columbia.
Wade agreed.
“I have not reached a conclusion because these discussions have raised some additional questions,” Wade said. “We need to take the opportunity now to truly get this issue addressed.”
Third Ward candidate Gary Kespohl said he supported a review board but wants to make sure they would use their time wisely.
“I am opposed to having a civilian review board on every complaint to the police department,” Kespohl said.
His opponent Karl Skala said Columbia was in need of a review board.
“We need to sit down and work this out,” Skala said. “We need to do this the right way.”
The Third Ward candidates said the civilian review board could be one way to deal with incidents of racial profiling.
“That’s a pretty serious matter,” Skala said about racial profiling. He said that developing a review board would force all of the stakeholders in that situation to discuss the issue, to educate others and to find compromise.
“If people are really committed to the civilian review board, that requires your participation,” Skala said to the audience.
“Everyone’s participation, in-
cluding the Police Department.”
Kespohl said that the issue of racial profiling was an example of the kind of task the review board should focus on, rather than discuss every single complaint that is filed against the department.
The Fourth Ward candidates agreed racial profiling was an important issue.
Holden said that requiring police to fill out a probable cause statement stating why a person was pulled over would be one way to limit profiling.
Wade said he had no good answer to how to end racial profiling in Columbia.
“That is so deeply ingrained in how we look at each other,” Wade said. “I would like to walk in some of those shoes.”
All four candidates support an increase in community policing.
“It’s got to become neighborhood-based,” Wade said. Wade said more city actions should be based “from the bottom up.”
Pedestrian-friendly communities and neighborhood associations were mentioned by Holden and Kespohl, respectively, as further solutions to neighborhood safety.
Both Fourth Ward candidates agreed the number of minorities hired by the city was not adequate and cited societal trends as possible explanations.
Holden answered that people tend to hire people who look like them and then mentioned the importance of a blind hiring system to ensure that candidates from all areas of the country, not just Columbia, are considered.
Wade said the city should develop a pattern of developing talent pools within minority communities through purposeful job training and then hiring out of those pools.
“Those patterns do not now exist,” Wade said. “And something can be done about it.”