No need to change department policies, finds Merced Police Advisory Committee’s final report
In a final report to Merced City Council on Monday following “exhaustive” meetings over two months, the Merced Police Advisory Committee recommended no changes to the department’s policies.
The group inspected 17 different Merced police procedures, including use of force, deadly force, handcuffing, bias training and crisis intervention — none of which were found by the committee to require revisions.
“I think that the people are going to be very impressed with the findings, (which are) very palatable,” said Councilmember Delray Shelton, who works for the Merced County Sheriff’s Department. “I think people are going to see and understand that the men and women who work (at the department) put their best foot forward every day to try to do a very good job.”
The Police Advisory Committee was convened in June by Merced Mayor Mike Murphy and Shelton, one month after George Floyd’s death. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.
Merced, along with countless other cities across the nation, quickly saw calls by residents to examine local law enforcement practices and make reforms in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.
Eighteen community members with diverse backgrounds met four times during two hour meetings in July and August. The group was joined by Murphy, Shelton and members of the Merced Police Department, including Interim Police Chief Tom Cavallero.
“We all had different ideas of how things would go, how things would work out,” said committee Chairman Dee Tatum, a retired Merced County CEO and U.S. Air Force Colonel.
Tatum and members of Merced City Council said they were impressed by Cavallero and his department’s transparency.
“It is important work, you could tell by the way the meetings were conducted and the questions that were asked,” Murphy said, noting that the police department followed up thoroughly on each group members’ questions.
The committee’s discussion at no time considered defunding the police department, Tatum emphasized on Monday.
Instead, the group followed the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign as a road map. The campaign, which Murphy has advocated for in the past, highlights eight police reforms aimed at reducing police killings and excessive force.
According to the campaign’s website, Merced directly follows three of the eight suggested policies. Merced’s Police Advisory Committee found that closely follows the remaining five.
City Council response mixed
A majority of Merced City Council members on Monday vocalized their praise for the committee’s work.
“Good policing and good police work is an incredibly positive force in our society.” said Councilmember Matthew Serratto, who also works as a prosecutor within the Merced County District Attorney’s office. “Bad police work is an incredibly negative force, so there’s always a lot at stake here.”
Councilmember Fernando Echevarria, a former college campus police officer, went even further to recommend that Merced citizens should be trained on how to properly interact with and respect officers if they’re detained by police.
Councilmember Anthony Martinez concurred that the committee succeeded in their role, but expressed misgivings about the scope of the final report.
“I’m wondering if there was maybe a little more meat on the bone that maybe the committee should have chewed on,” Martinez said.
“I think that the police are doing a good job,” he went on to say. “They’re doing the job that we tell them to do.”
However, Martinez noted that the country is experiencing a national movement concerning the role of the police, and the effects are reaching Merced.
With the committee’s final report recommending zero policy changes, he begged the question of whether that means Merced has “the best darn policies around.”
Martinez said it could have been insightful for the final report to be more data driven and “get into the weeds” of how the police force could evolve. He noted that the report studied police policies, but not how effective the policies have been over the years or whether most officers are actually following the procedures.
No community members commented on the groups’ findings at the meeting, but several individuals similarly criticized the report on the streamed meeting’s Facebook Live.
“Change can be difficult, but at the same time we should realize as a city that if we’re not open-minded to making ourselves in greater capacity evolving for the future, we’re gonna draw greater problems down the line,” Martinez said.
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
