Audit criticizes police reviews.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

City officials already are responding to an auditor's report released Thursday that criticized the reliability, timeliness, thoroughness and quality of supervision over investigations into allegations against Eugene Police Department employees.

Independent auditor Howell Lankford of Portland reviewed 17 internal affairs cases completed in 2003 and 41 cases in which a file was never opened.

For the first time in the three years since the city first contracted for the annual audit, Lankford found serious fault with the way the internal affairs process was handled.

"I cannot see how the department's (internal audit) process can be depended upon - by the department or the community - without more active and detailed internal review," he said in the five-page report.

City Manager Dennis Taylor and Eugene Police Chief Robert Lehner said the report repeated their own observations about the questionable quality of the department's internal investigations.

In fact, the chief asked the city's police commission in March to evaluate the department's complaint review process and provide feedback on how to improve the system. He said at the time that he was uncomfortable and frustrated with the quality of the investigations and the secrecy involved in the process.

In response to Thursday's report, Lehner ordered his staff to deliver all backlogged complaint cases to his desk by early next week and to expedite their handling, starting with the oldest cases first.

"I didn't see anything in the report that I would disagree with," Lehner said. "The one surprise to me was the level of severity."

The city manager called the audit "a realistic appraisal of areas where we need to improve."

The 17 completed files Lankford reviewed included all 12 allegations of excessive force or discrimination the department received last year. The other five represent a random sample from the remaining cases.

At the police commission's request, Lankford also for the first time looked at a selection of informal inquiries that did not receive a full investigation.

The audit identified three main weaknesses in the way the process is being conducted.

"They are not substantially different from the criticisms I've had in the past," Lankford said of his findings at the joint meeting of the police and human rights commissions on Thursday, where the report was released publicly.

"They're the same problems, perhaps presented more acutely than in the past," he said.

The process is not timely.

Department policy requires a response within 25 days of a complaint. However, in several cases, six months or longer elapsed between the time of the incident and the first interviews, the report said. Sometimes the delays were understandable - unavailable witnesses, unreturned phone calls, people on vacation - but even in those cases, communication apologizing for and explaining the delays was uncommon, the audit said.

"Delay is fatal to the process," he told commissioners. "If you're doing investigations three or four months after the event, the department has screwed up big time."

Supervisors appear to be signing off on investigations without a thorough review.

As a result, Lankford said, serious errors are going undetected. In one case, the investigation never addressed the allegations made by the complainant, and exonerated the officer of misbehavior that was never an issue, he said.

He found no evidence in the past two years that a supervisor has ever sent back a case for further investigation or clarification.

Both the city manager and the chief said such supervision was occurring; it just wasn't being documented. That will change, they said.

Lankford found that some of the investigations did not try hard enough to determine the facts of the case.

He pointed to a case in which the investigator "apparently just took the officer's word over the complainant's with respect to an underlying factual dispute."

"It's hard to imagine a competent police officer offering that sort of investigation to a district attorney for use in a criminal proceeding," he said.

He also noted that the sampling disclosed more of a sense of alienation between the community and the police department than he has observed in the past.

Without making excuses for the failures, Taylor said the problems could be the result of a year without a permanent city manager and two years without a permanent police chief in office.

He said a recent surge in retirements among command staff and the youth of the police force also could be contributing factors.

Recent changes to patrol structure - fewer officers under more sergeants who monitor activity more closely - should help address the problem, along with a budget request to hire 12 more recruits, on top of the 11 currently in the police academy.

The police chief also blamed a "general degradation over time" that occurs when complaint review is not a high priority.

While the police commission will continue its research into how other cities the size of Eugene handle citizen complaints and allegations generated within the department, Lehner said he could not wait the 18 months or more that process could take before acting on the report.

In addition to expediting old complaint cases, he also ordered his staff to deliver a list of short-term solutions that could be instituted in the meantime.