Two leave
police review panel in protest
SARASOTA
- The chairman and a founding member of the city's Police Complaint Committee
have each resigned in protest from the citizens group, saying it lacks any real
authority to fix disciplinary problems within the Sarasota Police Department.
Ronald L. Riffel, a retired social worker who chaired the
committee, and Frank Brenner, a lawyer who spent 50 years as a prosecutor,
defense attorney and judge in New York City's municipal court system, tendered
their resignations Wednesday evening during the committee's June meeting.
Riffel said he wanted to stop perpetuating the illusion that
there is actual civilian oversight of the police department.
"Citizens should not be misled that their interests are
served by a committee of citizens overseeing the SPD when in fact the committee
is a window dressing," Riffel said in his resignation letter, which was
sent to the mayor and other city officials.
Brenner quit for similar reasons.
"The committee is ineffective — more than ineffective.
It hasn't been embraced by the city or the police department," he told the
Herald-Tribune. "It has no teeth. There's no way to fix it. Nobody wants
it to accomplish anything."
Both men blamed the police union for having a
"stranglehold" on the administration, which they said stifles good
management practices.
The committee was initially touted by city officials as a
way to restore public confidence in a department left reeling after an officer
was caught on video kicking a handcuffed immigrant at the county jail.
On paper, the committee was intended to advise the police
chief on policies and procedures pertaining to complaints made against his
officers.
In practice, however, both Brenner and Riffel said all the
four volunteers do is read closed internal affairs investigations that have
already been settled. Every recommendation their committee has made has been
ignored by the police department, they said.
Peter Graham, administrator of both the Police Complaint
Committee and the similar Police Advisory Panel, said the committee will
continue to meet. Graham brought a new member to the meeting, Hal McDuffie, a
trained polygraphist now working in security at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Riffel said Graham, who receives a $65,000 annual salary and
is the only paid employee of the two groups, has a "vested interest in
trying to keep the committee going."
"It might be as simple as he needs a job," Riffel
said. "In private, he has agreed with everything I've said and done."
Vice-Mayor Willie Shaw, who attended the meeting, said he
understood the members' frustration.
"Your frustrations are the frustrations of the
community, who have the same views," Shaw said. "This is not a
committee, but a community problem."