Fresno adopts police reform report. Here’s how much is left to put it in practice
The Fresno City Council on Thursday unanimously accepted a report and recommendations from the commission on police reform — setting in motion a team that will oversee the potential changes to police policies.
The commission finalized 73 recommendations on Oct. 30 that cover police policy when it comes to deadly use of force, response to nonviolent calls for service, hiring and recruitment, contracting with school districts and a slew of other topics.
The council adopted the recommendations — but that does not make them instantly into policy, multiple members of the council noted. Councilmember Paul Caprioglio was absent.
A seven-member Police Reform Implementation Team will review the individual recommendations and what it would take to implement them. The City Council gets the final say on what should become policy and how tax dollars are spent related to them.
Each member of the council will appoint a team member and the mayor will pick the eighth member in the new year.
Councilmember Nelson Esparza praised the commission’s work.
“This report has a tremendous amount of potential to transform the way this community is policed,” he said. “I think this report has a lot of potential to unite us as a community.”
The council earmarked $1 million for efforts related to the recommendations of the commission in the city’s $1.5 billion 2020-21 budget. There is potential for the council to allocate more dollars.
Some already voice concerns
Councilmember Esmeralda Soria said she is interested in how the process can better serve young people, who might otherwise be on the losing side of interactions with police.
“I think we do have to recognize where there is the opportunity to reform things, because things haven’t worked,” she said. “I have my sleeves rolled up to continue the work.”
Councilmembers Mike Karbassi and Garry Bredefeld both made it clear they supported adopting the report but could not support all 73 recommendations as they were submitted.
“I’m not implementing all the recommendations. I can tell you that right now,” Bredefeld said. “I don’t support some of these recommendations. There are plenty that I do.”
Karbassi said he also was hesitant to support some of the recommendations, but committed to giving each a fair assessment.
The City Council this year approved a $210 million budget for the police department, which is a year-to-year increase of about $10 million.
Police funding was been a topic of contention, as it has been previously. But the calls for defunding police were intensified this year after the public killing of George Floyd and other events that followed.
The reform commission also called for an audit of police spending to find savings.
Commission chairperson Oliver Baines said the public death of Floyd put the 39-member commission in a unique place to be able to make the recommendations.
“There was some areas where the (reform) committees got to do some in-depth work. Use of force is one of them,” he said. “They were able to get in and peel back what use-of-force should be from a philosophical standpoint.”
Baines pointed to recommendation No. 14, which says, “The use of force policy should state that deadly force may be used only for the protection of human life.”
“That is a protective use-of-force policy,” Baines said. “That is the one down the line that I think will potentially save a life of a person that may be unarmed, fleeing from an officer.”
The recommendations include one for a citizens oversight board that would be made of up to 13 people appointed by the mayor to oversee law enforcement, including the Office of Independent Review.
A survey by the reform commission found Fresno residents wanted: updates to the use-of-force policy, training on implicit bias, pulling officers off of nonviolent calls, and moving funding from the police department to parks-related services, the report said.
Commission vice chairperson Sandra Celedon, the executive director of Fresno Building Healthy Communities, said reforming the Fresno Police Department is not anti-police — a narrative sometimes thrust on those seeking reform.
“The overarching message that we heard time and time again was this was really about being pro-community and pro-police,” she said. “Those two systems and two communities are not in opposition.”
