St. Paul council votes to remove cops from complaint review board
Updated: 9:20 p.m. | Posted: 8:21 p.m.
St. Paul police may lose representation on the board that handles complaints against officers.
The St. Paul City Council approved an amendment Wednesday that will remove police representatives from the city's Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission.
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Civil rights leaders have said the commission is biased to favor police, and Mayor Chris Coleman asked a University of Minnesota center to audit the commission last year.
St. Paul Police Federation President Dave Titus said in a post on the federation's Facebook page the change "represents a complete and tragic disregard for our great officers who put their lives on the line every day.
"It boggles my mind, that the Mayor and Council believe the actions of officers should be judged by those less knowledgeable on the policies and procedures with zero input from actual subject-matter experts — street cops. Moving the commission into the Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity creates personal data security issues and sets up a system unlike that for any other city employee."
The final changes to the measure, which was introduced by council member Dai Thao, are scheduled to go before the council at its next meeting.