On October 27^th, 2021, Check CU published an article which reveals many of the failures of the TASER review process by the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB):

Urbana Staff Refuse Oversight on Police TASER Usage

From the article:

“When the Board members issued protest about the repeated failures of UPD to comply with their end of the TASER review, City Administrator Carol Mitten took things even further.  Mitten pushed an interpretation of the CPRB’s TASER directive which would seem to make the entire TASER review effort pointless.  Mitten claimed that the CPRB has no authority to consider if a TASER gun was used improperly by a police officer.  Instead, she argued, the Board could only make suggestions about modifying TASER use policy.”

At the December 22^nd, 2021 meeting of the CPRB, Urbana City Staff doubled down on their efforts.  Urbana City Attorney David Wesner attended the CPRB meeting, apparently for the sole purpose of repeating Carol Mitten’s argument that the CPRB was not allowed to discuss or vote on possible improper usage of TASERs.

Wesner’s presence at the meeting is curious, especially since Carol Mitten had previously complained about the legal costs of holding CPRB incident reviews.  Wesner is not a salaried employee of Urbana, but was hired as an hourly contractor and appointed by Mayor Diane Marlin and the City Council to act as City Attorney.  It is not currently known who directed Wesner to attend the December 27^th CPRB meeting and enjoin the members from discussing possible policy violations.

In any case, Mr. Wesner’s assertion, and the assertion of Carol Mitten at the previous meeting, do not appear to align with the plainly stated intent of the City Council when the TASER review ordinance was passed in 2015:

“WHEREAS, the City Council deems it appropriate to amend Ordinance No. 2011-05-034 (Urbana City Code Sec. 19-20 et seq.) in order to confer authority on the CPRB to generally review the Police Department’s compliance with proper directives, policies, practices, procedures, and protocols concerning the deployment and use of TASERs and, where appropriate, make recommendations to the Mayor and/or the City Council regarding the same.”

It seems the spectacle of Urbana’s Civilian Police Review Board, a civilian board which is not quite allowed to review the police, will continue.  Nearly nine months into their terms, the seven members of the Urbana City Council, all of whom campaigned heavily on police reform, have made no noticeable efforts to reform the CPRB or Police Use of Force review.

Note: this article was updated after publishing to include the quoted section of the 2015 TASER review ordinance.