Police union misfires.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The Eugene Police Employees Association's opposition to creation of a civilian review board to monitor complaints against officers is predictable, given the union's primary mission to protect the department's employees. It's also disappointing, and reveals a failure to fully grasp how deeply last year's officer sexual abuse scandals and other problems have undermined public trust.

Until now, the union has played a largely positive role in the investigations and reforms that followed the scandal. Fears that the union might obstruct Chief Robert Lehner's reform efforts proved unwarranted. But now the union has miscalculated by opposing the creation of a civilian review board at a time when it's essential for the department to open itself to public scrutiny.

Under a tentative proposal being drafted by the city's police commission, the city manager would hire a full-time auditor who would direct and monitor internal police investigations. The proposal calls for creation of a civilian review panel that would monitor the auditor's performance, as well as investigations of the most serious allegations. Citizens upset with outcomes of complaints could take them to the civilian panel, which would address broad policy concerns but would not serve in a formal appeals capacity.

The union supports the hiring of an auditor and other changes to the investigations process. But it argues without justification that a civilian review board adds an unnecessary level of oversight and would infringe on the rights of police employees by subjecting them to "citizen trials."

This objection reveals an unhealthy distrust of the community that the union's rank and file is supposed to serve and protect. The objection that such a review panel could engage in what union attorney Rhonda Fenrich calls "group think" is demeaning to the community and its residents who are quite capable of thinking and acting independently - and of balancing the rights of the public against those of police department employees. Moreover, the commission's still-emerging plan envisions the civilian panel as serving in a watchdog capacity, not as a final arbiter of complaints.

Fenrich also had the audacity to cite the department's handlings of the sexual abuse cases involving former officers Juan Lara and Roger Magana as examples of how the department is capable of policing itself. That's a classic example of revisionist history, one that ignores the dysfunctionality of a department that allowed two officers to engage in heinous activities for a protracted period. An unbiased, transparent review process, one that afforded as much protection for civilians as it did for police officers, might well have brought the officers' activities to light far earlier - or perhaps prevented them altogether.

Civilian review boards can pose problems, but the city can design its new internal review process to address them. Any negatives would be far outweighed by the benefits of the community knowing that it has a direct role in ensuring that complaints against police are handled fairly and thoroughly.