Cheyenne first to add civilians to police review board
Cheyenne first to add civilians to police review board
By Hannah Black
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via Wyoming News Exchange
CHEYENNE — The Cheyenne Police Department will place two civilians on a board that reviews use-of-force incidents involving its officers.
Officer David Inman called the addition a “significant revision to our policy” and said CPD is the first law enforcement agency in Wyoming to include citizens on a use-of-force review board.
“That’s mainly what it comes down to, is just to have somebody who’s not a police officer to be on this board to have some more transparency with what we do as far as use of force goes and how we document it,” Inman said.
The board also includes police officers, a use-of-force instructor for the department, command staff and a patrol officer elected by other officers. The department will provide further details about the review board’s members and how it will function during a Thursday morning news conference, Inman said.
The addition of civilians was “already in the works,” he said, before tensions increased across the country this summer regarding police violence and use of force.
Two lawsuits filed against CPD earlier this year in U.S. District Court allege excessive use of force by Officer Eric Norris, who has been with the department for about 10 years, according to previous reporting. One of the lawsuits also names the city of Cheyenne and CPD Officer C.K. Wood as defendants. The incidents allegedly took place in 2017 and 2018.
CPD officers used force in 234 of 72,468 total calls, or 0.32% of the time, according to the department’s annual report from 2019. A use-of-force incident is defined in the report as anything “beyond standard handcuffing.”
Cheyenne Police Chief Brian Kozak said in September that the department’s average annual use-of-force numbers are “fairly low,” compared to nationwide statistics.
While the residents involved in the federal cases turned to the courts, there is also a system through which complaints can be filed with the department itself. Twenty-six complaints were submitted to CPD itself in 2019, with 16 of those being “externally generated,” according to previous reporting.
CPD began investigating the 2017 and 2018 incidents on its own initiative, Kozak said at the time. The incidents occurred before all CPD officers began using body cameras in October 2018.