The Alexandria Community Policing Review Board should be up and running by September — just in time to turn in a written report to City Council on its activities, according to Board members.
The seven-person Board was created by City Council last year to independently review allegations of police misconduct, and its effectiveness is based on Members receiving extensive training, as well as the hiring of an independent auditor/investigator to hire staff, conduct investigations and coordinate the Board’s administrative functions.
Board Member Rob Krupicka, a former City Councilman and Delegate, said that the training is taking longer than anticipated.
“There’s a lot of reasons why we’re not going to be able to fully function as a board yet, because of all the moving parts to get up and running,” Krupicka said at the most recent Board meeting at City Hall on July 6 (Wednesday). “I had a conversation and with the mayor and explained to him that the training requirements, due to a number of things, weren’t going to happen exactly on the six month timeline, but that we could get them done a few months after that. Essentially, we were compressing a year’s worth of training into six months and it was just too much to do that.”
Krupicka said that the Board will have also drafted its official bylaws by September.
The Board must do the following every six months:
- At least eight hours of training, presented by the National Association for Criminal Oversight of Law Enforcement or a comparable professional organization
- Training by the applicable city staff addressing legal and ethical obligations of members of a public board, and APD policies and training, including but not limited to defensive tactical training,
- Crisis Intervention Training, and de-escalation training
- Training on privacy rules and City policies and procedures involving liability and employee discipline
- At least three ride-along sessions with APD patrol operations per calendar year
The Board interviewed one candidate for the auditor position on Wednesday night in a closed session.
Board Chair Todd Pilot said that the City is now looking at six auditor/investigator candidates.
“I also know that they’re (the City Manager’s office) still looking at other resumes,” Pilot said.
The City is using recruitment firm POLIHIRE to find auditor candidates. The job pays between $106,845 and $193,631.
The City and the auditor/investigator will also provide Board members with additional training on “mental health, trauma-informed policing, civil rights and constitutional law, race and systemic racism, community organizing and outreach, mediation, investigation, and policing practices, policies and administration,” according to the ordinance establishing the Board.
The date of next month’s meeting is not yet posted on the city’s website.
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