|
Miami's Civilian Investigative Panel
emerged from the city's urban battleground in 2001, born of outrage over
fatal police shootings, a perceived heavy-handedness by cops during the
Elian Gonzalez standoff, and the general sentiment that officers were
running roughshod over minority communities. The panel's function -- the
CIP has the power to subpoena documents and testimony, but can only
make recommendations on police department discipline and policy --
emerged from a year-long battle between a coalition of civil rights
groups and police and Miami city officials. Some government types,
including then-police Chief Raul Martinez, resisted the idea of an
oversight board until the public clamor became too loud to ignore.
Having teetered on the verge of irrelevance, the panel now finds itself
enmeshed in a massive inaugural investigation that chairman Larry
Handfield calls a trial by fire.
In the two months since the arrest of
more than 200 protesters at the Free Trade Area of the Americas
ministerial, the CIP has endured mounting criticism from the media and
activists and the resignation of one panelist. At one meeting members
were briefly addressed and berated by Miami Police Chief John Timoney;
then the panel held a public hearing where it was alternately harangued
for a perceived lack of impartiality and exhorted to come down hard on
power-crazed police. All this, and the CIP hasn't yet hired a lawyer,
who will be needed in order to exercise the panel's vaunted subpoena
power. The CIP also has money in its budget for two investigators, but
neither position has yet been filled.
With about 150 people in attendance,
the January 15 public hearing at Miami City Hall threatened to devolve
into farce. Before the meeting started, representatives of Miami
Activist Defense (MAD) read a statement bemoaning the CIP's lack of
enforcement power and indicating that they (along with the American
Civil Liberties Union and National Lawyers Guild) have advised activists
facing criminal trials or considering civil suits not to file
complaints with the CIP, as doing so would jeopardize pending legal
action. They also criticized panel member Peter Roulhac, chairman of the
Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, who publicly lauded Timoney shortly
after the FTAA. Roulhac resigned from the CIP January 16.
Panel members looked a bit
shell-shocked staring down the barrels of TV cameras and taking in the
fiery oratory -- local AFL-CIO president Fred Frost got the crowd riled
up, and several other speakers received standing ovations.
It became clear that the CIP would
not just be investigating individual complaints alleging specific
misconduct by police (the panel has received 29 complaints, 15 of which
are FTAA-related). "The CIP has the ability to investigate any conduct
by the police without individual testimony," notes Naomi Archer of the
Save Our Civil Liberties Campaign. Archer's group, like MAD, sprang up
following the FTAA. Indeed the fracas created by the arrest of
protesters seems to have launched interest in the sort of grassroots activist movements that have heretofore been largely absent in Miami.
Archer says the CIP can gather enough actionable material by using its subpoena power and combing the Internet and print media to conduct a thorough investigation without doing mass intake of personal accounts.
At the hearing, panel member Donald
Bierman lamented the lack of individual complaints being filed, though
plenty of people gave general testimony. He also raised eyebrows by
saying that, as a criminal defense
attorney, he would have no problem advising a client with a pending
trial to testify before the panel. Bierman seemed skeptical of those who
testified, asking Frost if union members had invited any "outsiders" to
march with them. Frost's reply, that the march was permitted for union
members as well as numerous others, was met with a disappointed sigh
from Bierman. When ACLU counsel Rosalind Matos-Dammert testified that
police had ignored a public records request for FTAA planning documents,
Bierman asked: "Had you submitted an agreement to not share that
information with any protesters?" He was reminded, by several people in
the audience as well as the speaker, that they were discussing a public
records request.
Bierman told Frost he'd heard a nasty
rumor that the labor unions allowed nonunion protesters into their
march on Thursday, November 20. "If that's not true, and I hope it's
not, I'd like to hear it," Bierman said.
"Ninety different organizations were
part of our permitted march," Frost explained. "Those people were
welcomed in. But when we tried to get into the amphitheater the police
stopped [nonunion] people from going in there.... When officers saw
people they thought might have looked a little different than you and I,
they determined that they were the evil element and stopped them from
going in."
Panel members requested written
complaints at the hearing, and were repeatedly rebuffed by speakers who
insisted that there was enough material in the public domain for the CIP
to decide what it needed to request from police. Panelists seemed
surprised to learn about all the photographs and video on the Internet,
and equally surprised to hear that the police department had its own
video and photos. CIP executive director Shirley Richardson told the
panel that she had requested all official police photos and video, but
had received no response. CIP vice chairperson Janet McAliley suggested
they subpoena the materials. "That's something that, as chairman, I will
undertake," Handfield replied.
Other panel members seem ready to
proceed with the investigation, regardless of individual testimony. "We
investigate complaints, but we are also able to advise on general
policy," says McAliley. She admits, though, that "right now our legal
advice comes from an assistant city attorney whose office probably will
be defending some of the lawsuits that come out of this, so I'm very
anxious to have our own attorney."
CIP chairman Handfield has a $674,000
annual operating budget to work with, and says he'll hire an attorney
and two investigators as soon as possible.
"All the [job applications] were due
Monday [January 19], so we should have somebody in the next month," says
Handfield in typically measured fashion. The Miami native (whose
penchant for doing splits as a drum major at Carol City High School does
not, apparently, translate into a flamboyant public persona) speaks in a
monotone while running the meetings, and has the knack of a natural
politician for sounding masterful while divulging little. At the public
hearing Handfield was mostly silent until the end, when he made a
statement that seemed tailored for attending reporters: "Our task is
historical, difficult, and challenging. When you have the power to issue
a subpoena, it is a power we cannot abuse. Nor should we be reluctant
to use it when we have the proper cause to use it. Please understand our
job is to be fair, thorough, and unbiased."
Handfield tried to adjourn after
reading this statement, but McAliley interrupted him to ask for an
update on hiring an attorney and investigators. "I tried to get a
discussion going on how we are going to move forward with this,"
McAliley says. "We don't have a committee system, and because of the
Sunshine Laws, we can't meet separately to discuss issues. All our
business is done at monthly meetings, so any decisions in between are
made by the chairman. I was hoping to deal with some of the big
decisions facing us." But Handfield assured McAliley that proper steps
were being taken and gaveled the meeting without further discussion.
Thus the progress of the CIP and its
investigation of local law enforcement is largely under Handfield's
control. The successful trial lawyer -- a senior partner at Pitts,
Handfield and Valentine -- is quietly integral to a number of
high-profile situations. He chairs the Public Health Trust, a position
he's held since February of 2003. Handfield has defended clients such as
former county Commissioner James Burke and former state Rep. and
Opa-locka Mayor Willie Logan, and has been quoted frequently over the
last two decades as president of the Black Lawyers Association. He's
managed to attain publicity without notoriety, perhaps by feeding
reporters the kind of somnolent rhetoric that sounds wise but not
incendiary.
Courtroom tactics are another matter,
however, and Handfield pulled no punches in the 1993 trial of a
vacationing black couple arrested in the Keys after being pulled over
for speeding and charged with obstructing police. Handfield argued that
the couple were mistreated because they were black, and addressed the
jury thusly: "You didn't wake up this morning in Nazi Germany. This is
not a police state."
A similar sentiment was expressed
time and again by protesters at the CIP's public hearing, and while some
activists accused the panel of being lackeys, no one took any direct
shots at Handfield. The chairman has worked on both sides of the
law-enforcement fence, as a defense attorney and in the early Eighties
as an assistant state attorney. He has prosecuted and defended police
officers, and his impartiality is so far unquestioned.
There is already grumbling, however,
about the next CIP meeting. On February 5, the panel will hear from
Timoney and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. The two will present the results of
their internal investigation into the FTAA summit, a move already being
criticized by MAD as "an inverting of a process where victims should
feel free to present their stories."
Even McAliley wonders about the
decision to cede the podium to Diaz and Timoney: "I have to question
whether this is a forum for the CIP or a forum for the chief and the
mayor."
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted
material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the
copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material
non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this
constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for
in 17 U.S.C ยง 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper
which first published the article online and which is indicated at the
top of the article unless otherwise specified. | 
