Activists came to talk about police oversight. Raleigh officers came in uniforms.
In a crowded room at Chavis Community Center, Shemekka Ebony stood up and pointed at a group of uniformed police officers.
“You all are intimidating,” she said. “Just stand up and look. I have never seen this many law enforcement officers show up to anything, ever. This is intimidating.”
Ebony was one of about 100 people who had come to the meeting in Southeast Raleigh to talk about how the community can hold police accountable.
Thursday night’s event was the sixth and final meeting organized by the city to get community feedback about police oversight. Some of the roughly 20 officers joined small-group discussions at the meeting, while others lined the back wall with other city staff members and elected leaders.
Community organizations, including Raleigh Police Accountability Community Taskforce (PACT), have called for a police oversight board for years, often at Raleigh City Council meetings.
Some city leaders worried the same activists would dominate the six public-input meetings. Now activists are saying uniformed police officers did the same thing.
“The fact that there is this many uniformed officers with your guns and your vests on mean you didn’t come in here as a community,” said Stephanie Lormand. “You came in here wearing your guns. You could have come in and spoke as community. This doesn’t feel like community when you come here in uniform.”
During the session, participants were asked to describe their ideal community, if Raleigh needs a review board and what its goals should be.
Police leaders say Raleigh doesn’t need an oversight board, while some community members, citing police shootings and alleging profiling or harassment, disagree.
The discussion has grown more tense in the last year after the fatal police shooting of Soheil Mojarrad in April. Some PACT members and friends of Mojarrad interrupted a City Council meeting and have continued to hold rallies in his memory. Mojarrad was accused of stealing a phone and brandishing a knife.
Walking around the room with her cell phone, Wanda Gilbert-Coker streamed Thursday night’s meeting on her Facebook account.
“This was not a citizen participatory opportunity to be open and transparent,” she said. “In fact I went live because people were intimidated to come here.”
Chief opposes board
Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown rejected the idea that uniformed officers at the meetings were intimidating.
“They live, work, play, learn in the city the same as everybody else does,” Deck-Brown said. “Why would it (be intimidating)? We are at a community meeting.”
“Some of us, because it means so much to us, show up (here) after we have done a nine or 12 hour day already,” she said.
She stands by her opposition to a police oversight board, but said the meetings were a chance for the department to listen to the community and for the community to learn about the department.
“The biggest thing is there is a lack of information,” she said. “I think the community is also wanting more information in terms of what we do, how we do it and why we do it. Some things we cannot share because of the law, in particular personnel law, and I think since this is the last meeting there is more to do. What that looks like I am not sure.”
3 options presented
The city presented three options for public consideration: a citizen-led oversight board with subpoena and discipline power, a citizen-led review board that would make recommendations to the Police Department and an office of citizen advocacy that would be an internal position or department within the city.
Audrea Caesar, executive director of the city’s Human Relations Commission, did get feedback from some community members about the number of officers who have attended the meetings.
“Folks have got to understand that police are part of the community in Raleigh. Their input is valuable,” she said. “But I understand the concerns too. ... Some people may not be comfortable and we need to talk about it.”
She also hoped that the residents feel heard and said she plans to compile their feedback in a report to the council in early 2020.
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 4:30 PM.
