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Syracuse Citizen Review Board Administrator Shares Parting Thoughts About Cooperation, Policing

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The administrator of board tasked with investigating allegations of police misconduct is stepping down Friday to take a related position in New York City.  WAER News caught up with Joe Lipari, who came to Syracuse in 2012 when the Citizen Review Board was trying to regain its footing after years of obscurity and inactivity.

GETTING STARTED

Lipari feels he was able to help the board get back on track by launching professional investigations, holding hearings, issuing regular reports, and making policy and training recommendations to the police department.  He says months of work by common councilors on re-vamping the board’s enabling legislation prior to his arrival certainly gave him a good foundation.

"The legislation for the Syracuse CRB is one of the best forms of a CRB in terms of the ability to conduct independent, separate investigations from the police department, the subpoena power to get records, documents, videos, etc., having a full time administrator, and being able to make policy and training recommendations."

Even if virtually none of them have been formally adopted by the department.  Lipari says very few civilian agencies have the authority to impose changes or discipline.  Still, he wished for more voluntary collaboration and cooperation.

"I would have preferred to have had a better working relationship with the chief and the mayor's office," Lipari said.  "But, they're in a tough position.  It's essentially set up to be an adversarial process, although I tried to do it in the least adversarial way as possible.  But after you deal with a few difficult situations, it becomes hard to build those relationships."

At the same time, he says interactions between stakeholders can’t be too comfortable. 

"You don't want the administration too involved in the day to day work o the office or determining outcomes," Lipari said.  "You certainly wouldn't want that level of closeness.  But certainly seeing the recommendations adopted...policy recommendations, training recommendations formally adopted.  Those are steps that you'd want to see."

Lipari says the board doesn’t see itself as getting in the way of law enforcement.  He acknowledges it’s a balancing act, but one that can be mutually beneficial.

"Our ultimate goal is to ensure that the public has confidence in the accountability process,  and thus the larger department and individual officers so that they're more likely to cooperate with officers and make an officer's job easier.  We actually share the same goal at the end of the day."

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WAER News
Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner and Police Chief Frank Fowler.

CHARTING THE CHANGES

It wasn’t long after Joe Lipari took the helm of the CRB and began collecting data that it became clear the number one complaint against Syracuse Police officers was excessive force.  In fact, he says that category consisted of almost half of all complaints in 2013 and 2014.  Since then, Lipari says the biggest decline in complaints was use of force after fleeing…when a suspect bails out of a car or otherwise engages an officer in a foot pursuit. 

"The CRB started sustaining those cases against officers fairly consistently when the evidence warranted," Lipari said.  "Sometimes accompanied by an untruthfulness finding against the officer, that the panel didn't feel the officer provided an accurate, truthful account."

In 2013, there were 25 complaints of excessive force after fleeing.  It dropped to 11 in 2014, and just five last year.  Lipari says these incidents usually involved young men of color.

"Obviously that category of the population is often the focus of intense policing, but also a lot of the complaints and civil rights concerns that we're talking about on the national level right now," Lipari said. "So to see those complaints fall so significantly fairly quickly, that's an example of the real effect that civilian oversight can have."

He says those changes in officer behavior come despite the fact that formal discipline, or even training or policy recommendations by the CRB are virtually ignored by the chief of police.  That leaves Lipari disappointed but not discouraged.  He’s made this his career, after all, influenced by observing race relations in southern Louisiana where he grew up.  That led Lipari to study African American history, and becoming concerned with disproportionate outcomes in the criminal justice system.

"Knowing the broader history of African Americans in the United States, the end of slavery, migration to the north to the big cities, the changes in policing that accompanied that, I guess it instilled in me a view we didn't get here overnight," Lipari said.  "It's not a simple problem with simple solutions.  It's an institutional problem that requires an institutional response."

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Hear the story from WAER's Scott Willis.

Lipari remains optimistic that his successor and board members will continue to referee interactions between citizens and the police, calling foul when needed, and using those incidents to address issues long-term. 

The CRB meets Thursday evening at 6:30 in common council chambers, where two final candidates for administrator will make presentations.  The board could make a decision that evening in executive session.  

Scott Willis covers politics, local government, transportation, and arts and culture for WAER. He came to Syracuse from Detroit in 2001, where he began his career in radio as an intern and freelance reporter. Scott is honored and privileged to bring the day’s news and in-depth feature reporting to WAER’s dedicated and generous listeners. You can find him on twitter @swillisWAER and email him at srwillis@syr.edu.