Activists push for action from Raleigh officials after 2 police board members resign

Community activists said Thursday that the Raleigh Police Advisory Board was created just for show and cannot provide any real oversight of the police department because it is handcuffed by a lack of power and resistance within city government.

Posted 11:03 p.m. Mar 11, 2021 — Updated 2:24 a.m. Mar 12, 2021

Adam Owens

, WRAL anchor/reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Community activists said Thursday that the Raleigh Police Advisory Board was created just for show and cannot provide any real oversight of the police department because it is handcuffed by a lack of power and resistance within city government.

"The board the city gave us is not the board we asked for, and we kind of had a feeling this was going to take place," said Surena Johnson, coalition coordinator for Raleigh PACT, or Police Accountability Community Taskforce.

Two people on the nine-member board resigned Wednesday, less than a year into the job, citing a lack of confidence with the board's leadership and problems with city officials.

Activists said the resignations highlight problems with the board, and they put forward a list of demands for city leaders that they say will improve the board's operations:

Lobby state lawmakers for increased police advisory board powers, such as the ability to investigate complaints against officers and issue subpoenas.
Have the City Attorney’s Office state the legal reasoning for the Raleigh Police Department to withhold some department policies from the advisory board.
Allow the board to operate independently of City Manager Marchell Adams-David and Audrea Caesar, director of the city's Office of Equity and Inclusion. (One of the members who resigned said she felt both Adams-David and Caesar favored the police department in interactions with the board.)
Hold the line on police department spending and invest more money in mental health support programs, homelessness reduction initiatives and other social programs.

“We believe more power would lead to more transparency and trust,” advisory board member Greear Webb said. "We cannot conduct investigations, cannot subpoena, cannot access personnel files or understand what actions have been taken against police officers.”

Police department leaders fought the idea of an outside advisory board for years, and it was set up only to review departmental policies and bridge gaps between the department and the community, not investigate any complaints against officers.

One of the board's first tasks was to review a consultant's findings and recommendations on the department's handling of racial justice protests and subsequent riots last summer.

Even that review requires access to policies on use of tear gas and responding to protests, which the board doesn't have access to, activist Kerwin Pittman said.

“They are asking for things we can not do legally," Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. "The board we have constructed is what we can do legally."

Baldwin said some of the demands would have to be granted through changes in state law, adding that the city has written to lawmakers to expand the board's power.

Durham's Civilian Police Review Board has had such powers for over two decades.

"We have complete and total access of the investigative file," said DeWarren Langley, chairman of the Durham board, which handles complaints from the public about police conduct.

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