Dismissed by the police director and
diminished by the mayor, the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board sought to
find its footing in a meeting of firsts today.
CLERB members voted 10-0 to appeal to
Mayor Jim Strickland to support the relevance of the board, calling for the
replacement of Police Director Michael Rallings if necessary, and they voted
unanimously to subpoena four officers who allegedly beat and maced Marcus Walker
and his nephew in 2011 in an “initiation” type assault.
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| Marcus Walker explains what police did to him seven years ago |
Rallings has rejected every single CLERB
finding that disagreed with police internal affairs and every recommendation
about certain training or discipline of officers. The board has no independent
authority to discipline officers and may do no more than make
recommendations to the police director.
“Director Rallings is all but ignoring
the board’s recommendations,” the board wrote in a letter which will go out to
Mayor Strickland. “Unfortunately, Director Rallings has chosen…to render the
board ineffective by rejecting all of our recommendations. Some of these cases
involved unquestionable video footage, and it is beyond absurd that none of our
recommendations have been accepted.”
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| CLERB member John Marek, Marcus Walker listen to discussion |
WASTING
VOLUNTEERS’ TIME
“The members of CLERB volunteer our time,
and currently, it is being wasted,” the letter to Strickland continues. “CLERB
needs one of four things to take place before our board can be effective:
“1) Director Rallings to be reasonable
and at least meet us in the middle on our decisions (compromise); 2) A new
police director who will work with us; 3) A new ordinance that gives CLERB
binding decision-making power, or 4) an amendment to the current ordinance,
which gives appellate power to the mayor over the police director’s decisions.”
The request to subpoena officers is the
first under the latest ordinances, since CLERB was revived in 2015 and its
ordinance amended in 2016. CLERB was secretly disbanded in 2011 by Mayor A.C.
Wharton’s administration and was only brought back after a strong grassroots
campaign led by Memphis United and Paul Garner, organizing director of the
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center. The letter to Strickland was the first formal notice to the mayor about CLERB being disrespected -- although board members had been discussing it for a year.
