Before voting against Urbana’s new Fraternal Order of Police contract this evening, Council member Christopher Evans broke from his typically low-key presence at City Council meetings and issued a prepared statement which certainly turned some heads. Evans spoke about policing and police contracts, and gave some history on Urbana’s Civilian Police Review Board. The video of that statement, as well as a transcript, are provided below.
“Thanks for letting me talk.
Well, the stakes are just too high. The union of police officers is not like a union of carpenters, electricians, or factory workers. These are police officers and there is no job like it.
As everybody knows, police officers are authorized to use deadly force to kill you dead forever.
Police officers are authorized to bust your head open with baton.
Police officers are authorized to sting your eyes blind temporarily with pepper spray.
Police officers are authorized to administer 50,000 volts of electricity with a TASER.
Police officers are authorized to punch you in the mouth knocking out your teeth.
Police officers are authorized to search the contents of your pockets.
Police officers are authorized to search the contents of your entire house.
Police officers are authorized to search the contents of your car.
Police officers are authorized to administer fines for the way you drive or what you drive in.
Police officers are authorized to strip search you and do a cavity search.
If officers accuse you of being a drug dealer, police officers are authorized to take your car, your house, and all your money.
And on top of all that, police officers are authorized to persuade a prosecutor, a jury, and a judge to send you to a state prison for years or even decades.
Given this enormous power, it’s critical that these extraordinary powers are done in public, in the light, and in front of everyone to ensure that these things are done lawfully with justification and with good reason.
This is the United States of America. We don’t have secret police doing secret things, disappearing people to secret torture camps as is done in other countries. There is to be no expectation of privacy when officers do their job doing the public’s business.
So for years, it has been a travesty that the City of Urbana has allowed the Fraternal Order of Police to control, dictate, and limit the City’s Civilian Police Review Board through the contract agreed upon by the City in the FOP.
So thoroughly disempowered has a Civilian Police Review Board become, citizens don’t bother to use it, and several times the mayor has admitted to the public that the Civilian Police Review Board Ordinance needs to be changed.
But guess what? Council can’t change the ordinance because the FOP contract demands the ordinance comply with the FOP contract.
Also, this contract does not explicitly state for what intentional misconduct officers can be terminated. We need to warn officers that there are lines you will not cross and assure citizens Urbana takes intentional misconduct seriously and it will not be tolerated.
But none of these needed changes were allowed to be bargained with the police union. The last contract expired in June or July of 2020. Nothing much was done because of the pandemic. And so it fell to the new Council sworn in on May 3rd to finalize an agreement with the police.
We went into closed session about the contract on May 17th. It is here where I need to apologize to my constituents. I naively assumed that because I was being asked to approve a new contract with police, I would be allowed to give input as to what needed to be changed.
For the entire summer, City Council was told nothing. The contract was never discussed. Even after a contract was approved by the negotiators and given to the rank and file members of the Union to approve on August 12th, Council was kept ignorant as to what was going on.
Suddenly, on September 3rd, the City Council was given its first look at the new contract and told to approve it on September 7th. In closed session on September 7th, we were told by the labor attorney that no changes could be made to the contract, because that would be an impasse and the entire proceeding would be given to something called an interest arbitrator, something we were hearing for the first time.
I’d like to thank Michelle Brooks and Ben Gehrt for their efforts on the contract. I appreciated their candor. They did improve this contract in several ways and I want to acknowledge that.
As for my council colleagues, I respect however you vote tonight, I know you have the best interests of the City at heart. In my opinion, City Council is being asked to pretend that everything is good with this contract so as to avoid trouble. But nothing is going to change, needed reform can never happen, if City Councils here and in the state of Illinois and across the nation continue to bend the knee to the almighty FOP. The FOP works for the city, not the other way around. Even though my vote tonight won’t mean anything or do anything, I refuse to play pretend. Thanks for letting me speak.”
Thanks again to Chris Hansen for holding city council and the Mayor accountable.
While it escaped my attention that felons were discriminated against to ever be appointed on to the Civilian Police Review Board, here were the changes to the FOP contract I submitted to the entire Council before the Sept. 7 meeting:
Below are proposed changes to the Agreement between the City and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 70:
Section 8.7 Removal of Notices (p. 7)
Add: All documents involving written warnings, notices to correct deficiencies, and written reprimands shall remain permanently on file in an officer’s personnel file, and entire contents of an officer’s personnel file are subject to FOIA requests by members of the public and media.
Section 10.1 Residency requirements (p. 9)
Change to:
All new hires to the Urbana Police Department subsequent to the adoption of this Agreement, shall be required to establish residency within the city limits of the City of Urbana. All employees of the Urbana Police Department currently living outside the city limits of the City of Urbana prior to adoption of this Agreement may continue to do so. Should an employee decide to move their residency inside the city limits of the City of Urbana, the City agrees to pay that employee a $5,000 bonus to cover moving expenses.
Section 22.2 Civilian Police Review Board Provisions (p. 37)
Include:
A. Police officers subject to a CPRB proceeding shall be required to appear before the CPRB should the CPRB request the officer’s appearance.
C. CPRB proceedings and all collected officer records, files, and relevant medical information shall be public and subject to FOIA requests by members of the public or media.
Side Letter (CPRB) (p. 58)
Change to:
B. The Ordinance adopted may contain a mediation provision for individual complaints, and participation of any officer shall be required if the CPRB requests an officer’s participation.
D. The CPRB may conduct independent third-party investigations of an officer’s conduct.
Final Paragraph of Side Letter (CPRB) (p. 59)
Second Sentence changed to:
The execution of this Side Letter in conjunction with the Agreement concludes bargaining between the City and the Union over the impact and effects of the City’s creation of the CPRB, and provisions set forth herein this Agreement shall be consistent with any Ordinance adopted by the City.
Add section to Article 8:
Urbana Police Officers can be immediately terminated by the Urbana Chief of Police at the conclusion of an investigation, hearing, and appeal if:
1) An officer deliberately uses unjustified and reckless excessive force as defined in departmental policy and training.
2) An officer deliberately fails to intervene to stop a fellow officer from using unjustified and reckless excessive force as defined in departmental policy and training.
3) An officer deliberately fails to report incidents by fellow officers of unjustified and reckless excessive force as defined in departmental policy and training to a superior officer or supervisor.
4) An officer a) deliberately makes a false statement in a police report or warrant application; b) revises, edits, or redacts any portion of any document– for the purpose of creating a falsehood, or for the purpose of eliminating or concealing a false statement that had knowingly been made; or c) makes a statement orally or in writing in the course of employment as a police officer the officer knows or has reason to know to be false.
5) An officer intentionally entices, colludes with, or coerces any witness in any proceeding or matter to provide any statement or testimony the officer intends, knows, or has reason to know to be false.
6) An officer deliberately fabricates or tampers with any physical evidence in any matter in any way to reduce the integrity, reliability, or usefulness of the evidence.
7) An officer deliberately fails to collect or preserve any evidence relevant to any matter.
8) An officer engages in any conduct or makes any statement or representation that undermines the integrity, reliability, or truthfulness of any matter or investigation.
Any allegation of such misconduct shall be referred to the Chief of Police skipping Step 1 in Section 8.1 and any grievance contesting termination for the above reasons can be further appealed in Step 3 of Section 8.1 and Section 8.2.