No reports have been issued by Fresno cop watchdog in a year. Office still vacant
It has been a year since the Office of Independent Review issued a quarterly report on misconduct by Fresno police officers as the office’s main employee position has been vacant since last August.
The office has been touted as offering greater transparency around police misconduct cases than is available by the department alone. The police auditor also served as a backstop to double check shootings and other use-of-force incidents by police, as well as a second review of many cases in which officers are accused of misconduct.
The last quarterly report was issued in July 2025, a month before the last independent reviewer retired. John Gliatta, who had 27 years experience in the FBI, was the first reviewer named to the full-time position and the hiring was a campaign promise by then-Mayor Lee Brand.
City officials said in March they offered the job to a candidate, who turned it down. The search began again after that, according to Sontaya Rose, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office. She did not immediately respond Friday to questions about where the search now stands.
The reviewer issued quarterly reports with limited information on accusations of misconduct by officers and the disciplining of those who had been determined to violate department policy. The Fresno Police Department has hundreds of complaints a year and dozens of cases that end with discipline, which can be as simple as an official letter of reprimand that requires the officer to take more training or more serious cases that can end in termination.
Many details for ongoing cases are not available to the public under the Police Officers Bill of Rights.
The reviewer reports did not include the names of the officers under scrutiny and which misconduct led to which kinds of discipline, but since the office has remained vacant there have been no reports on such misconduct released by the office or the city.
When Brand made the hire in 2017, he cited tensions between residents and police following the killing of Dylan Noble, a 19-year-old who police fatally shot during a traffic stop in June 2016.
The police department will commonly not discuss alleged misconduct, particularly if the case is still open. Even after an officer is fired, it can be difficult to get information out of the department, which often cites the potential for legal repercussions.
It’s unclear how many new complaints or cases that would have been audited by the independent reviewer have been opened since the office became vacant.
The Office of Independent Review would release unsolicited information, and occasionally offer a more detailed explanation on the findings for specific cases.
In a report from October 2020, for example, the reviewer discussed what was excessive about the force officer Christopher Martinez used on 17-year-old London Wallace during a Jan. 23, 2019, incident.
The city settled the case for $500,000 two years later, but it was the reviewer and not the police department that discussed the issue publicly before the civil case ended.
A deputy chief addressed the subject when asked by a resident earlier this year during a public meeting on military-grade equipment and weapons.
Fresno Deputy Police Chief Burke Farrah said during the March meeting he was not clear on what will happen for cases left unseen by an independent reviewer. Police follow internal policies and are under potential review by the state Police Officers Standards and Training, a regulating body, he noted.
“Whether that person catches up on their work that’s done in the back and whatnot, I don’t know,” he said during the meeting. “But our policies remain the same. And not only are we accountable to our city manager, our mayor, our council (but) California POST we have to report to as well.”
