Alexandria City Council voted to advance proposed changes to the city’s police oversight ordinances Tuesday night (April 22), moving forward recommendations from a council subcommittee that address key issues, including investigation authority and subpoena power.
The ordinance amendments, which passed on first reading in a 6-1 vote, will be docketed for a public hearing and final passage on Saturday, April 26.
Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley and Councilman Canek Aguirre presented the subcommittee’s recommendations after months of work addressing three primary issues with the Independent Policing Auditor and Independent Community Policing Review Board ordinances.
“We had a very specific mandate,” Bagley explained. “Those meetings were publicly noticed. They were available to the public. We were joined by stakeholders who actively participated in the conversations.”
The subcommittee focused on three key areas: the board’s authority to initiate investigations when at an impasse with the auditor, the scope of subpoena power, and correcting a scrivener’s error regarding board review authority.
Under the proposed changes, if the police review board disagrees with the auditor’s decision not to investigate a matter, the board can vote to bring the issue before the City Council, which would make the final determination.
“If a majority of the board says we disagree with the auditor, we believe an investigation should happen, then it comes to council, and it will be docketed before us,” Bagley said.
Aguirre adds that this process maintains transparency and public accountability.
“This is still a very public thing,” Aguirre said. “If there is a disagreement between the board and the auditor and there’s a vote where the majority does say yes, we want to take this to the council… this is not only making the local news, this potentially making the Washington Post national news.”
The most contentious recommendation involves limiting the auditor’s subpoena power to obtaining documents and evidence rather than compelling witness testimony.
“Our approach was to limit subpoena power to, effectively, things,” Bagley explained. “It means essentially the production of relevant items and things. And in this context, that would mean body worn cameras, it would mean ring cameras, photographs.”
The subcommittee determined that this limitation acknowledges both legal constraints and practical concerns about compelling testimony from officers or citizens.
“The compromise that we reached was that we wouldn’t be limited from any tangible items, from photographs, videos, documents to be produced, but not individuals,” Bagley said.
Councilman Abdel-Rahman Elnoubi expressed concern about this limitation, suggesting that the city should maintain broader subpoena authority, even if it is rarely used.
“I still would rather we have a tool that we not need, that we not use, than need it and not have it,” Elnoubi said.
Acting Independent Policing Auditor Ameratu Kamara addresses this concern, noting that subpoenaing tangible items is the most common form of subpoena power used by civilian oversight bodies nationwide.
“It’s within best practices,” Kamara said, referencing the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE).
The third issue addressed by the subcommittee involved correcting language to clarify the board’s authority to review investigations conducted by both the police department and the auditor.
Councilwoman Jacinta Greene asks about the involvement of police review board members in the subcommittee process.
“They were able to ask and answer questions,” Aguirre confirmed. “It was a dialogue with them.”
Bagley added that while board members participated in discussions, they weren’t presumed to speak for the full board.
“I certainly didn’t think that they could in that moment speak for the full board. But I do think they were made to feel, and I speak this for myself, felt that they did feel heard,” Bagley said.
The Independent Community Policing Review Board, in a letter dated April 16, expressed opposition to two key elements of the proposed changes. The board unanimously opposes the structure requiring City Council to resolve disagreements between the board and auditor, arguing it makes “the Board’s role largely irrelevant.”
The board also opposes limiting subpoena power to only tangible items, supporting “retention of full subpoena authority” as necessary for thorough investigations.
Despite these objections, the council voted to move the ordinance forward with the subcommittee’s recommendations intact. Elnoubi cast the lone dissenting vote.
The ordinance will now proceed to a public hearing and a second reading on Saturday, April 26, where citizens will have the opportunity to comment before it is passed.
If approved, the changes will update the framework for civilian oversight of the Alexandria Police Department, which was established several years ago but has faced challenges with implementation.
“It’s been four years,” Aguirre noted. “We really need to stand something up that is official because there’s a lot of work that this board still has to do and can do.”
