Councilors vote unanimously to establish Police Advisory Board

Members of the public will provide feedback to the chief, but the board will have no oversight powers. Public debate raised questions about privilege and public perception.

Laramie City Councilors voted unanimously to establish a citizen advisory board for the Laramie Police Department during a meeting last week.

The unanimity was a surprise. The proposal had passed first reading with an 8-1 vote, and second reading with a 7-2 vote. But holdout councilors Brandon Newman and Joe Shumway — who each spoke against the board, even at this latest meeting — said they were willing to give the advisory body a chance, even though they still had some reservations.

Mayor Brian Harrington said the council was voicing its decision for a path forward.

“This is what we want to do in this space,” he said. “I hope that everyone will move forward from here, get on board, and give this board a chance to do the work they’re being asked to do by the council.”

As its name suggests, the board will serve in an advisory capacity, meeting publicly to communicate citizen concerns and feedback directly to Laramie Police Chief Brian Browne.

The board will be tasked with promoting “the highest principles of professional police conduct including, but not limited to, training, hiring practices, policy, consistency in policing, community relations and outreach, use of force, and the review of citizen complaints” by offering recommendations to the chief of police, city manager or the full city council.

And those recommendations are just recommendations; they have no binding power and the chief of police is free to ignore them. The board will not be able to hire or fire officers, change policy or mandate procedures.

Rather, the intention is that Laramie residents will have an avenue for commenting on the various aspects of policing listed above, and the police chief will have an avenue for spelling out his rationale and decision-making to the public.

“It would provide a structure through which residents can gain a greater understanding about city services in the police department while also providing recommendations and advice to leadership here at the city,” City Manager Janine Jordan told the council before its vote. “This board will work to expand public transparency around policing and enhance our accountability to the public.”

This is important, Councilor Erin O’Doherty said, because people don’t have a choice about what agency polices them. If they live in Laramie, they’ll be calling, stopped by, or otherwise interacting with the Laramie Police Department.

“They’re our police,” O’Doherty said. “Our citizens should have a say in how they want to be policed.”

The council will take a vote on the board’s proposed bylaws during its next regular meeting July 18. It will then have to select five local residents to serve on the board itself.

Not so black and white

The police chief himself supports the creation of this board and said his department largely does too. But not everyone was happy.

Some residents argued that any board — oversight, use-of-force review or even just advisory — represents an insult to the men and women wearing badges. Sandi Rees said the public does not need a new avenue for communicating with the police because she has never had any difficulty or trepidation approaching them.

“We have a chief of police and a management staff that are very good, very answerable,” she said. “And I have never found any problem at all in walking into the chief’s office, with previous chiefs, and visiting with any of them. As far as transparency and communication, it’s there.”

But local defense attorney Linda Devine countered that one white woman’s experience was not universal.

“Folks are saying they feel comfortable going into the chief’s office, they see no problems and I think that’s great,” Devine said. “But there are a lot of folks who perceive things differently.”

Devine shared a story about a black man she had represented in her role as a public defender. The man was suspected of driving under the influence and was pulled over in Laramie.

“This gentleman put his hands out the window and was waving them, (saying) ‘no gun, no gun, no gun.’”

Devine said the officer handled the situation well, but was confused as to why the man would be so upset.

“That’s where I think an advisory board can be helpful, having meetings, explaining why someone from one particular group of folks — whether it’s the color of their skin or they’re LGBTQ, or from a different city — may have different experiences, may have fear of law enforcement,” she said.

Devine said recognizing the disconnect does not equate to a hatred of the police. This point was echoed by Councilor O’Doherty during the council’s discussion.

“No one on this council is questioning the competency of our police chief,” O’Doherty said. “We are very happy with our police chief. We’re very happy with our police department. Most of our town is very happy with our police department. Some people don’t know enough about them, don’t know that they don’t have to be scared of our police officers. This is an opportunity for dialogue.”

Of course, minority residents acting cautiously around police are not being irrational. Individual police officers might not be racist, but the institution of policing — and the wider structure of criminal justice in the United States — produces and reproduces racial disparities.

Black people are far more likely to be stopped for without “just cause,” are far more likely to be arrested than white people, are more likely to experience the threat or use of force during a police stop and three times as likely to be killed by police as white people, and account for a disproportionate share of the country’s prisoners.

These disparities persist, even in rural Wyoming.

According to population figures and FBI crime data, Black people make up about 1.4 percent of Laramie’s population, but account for 5.8 percent of arrests.

In a recent citywide survey of Laramie residents, there were too few Black respondents to say anything significant about how Black residents viewed the community. But when it came to the topic of policing, there was a stark racial divide between white and Hispanic residents, with white residents far more likely to say that LPD “works with the community to solve problems” or “treats people with dignity and respect.”

The long road to a “radical” middle

Police oversight and accountability have been debated in Laramie for years. The conversation gained steam in the wake of the 2018 police killing of Robbie Ramirez and again during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

In the summer of 2020, the Laramie City Council agreed to take up the issue of civilian oversight. It first tasked then-Chief Dale Stalder and his boss, City Manager Jordan, with researching the feasibility of civilian oversight boards. Stalder and Jordan reported their findings to the council six months later.

A succession of committees followed.

The council first convened a selection committee, which selected individuals to serve on a police-community relations working group. The working group — which was about one-third law enforcement professionals — developed recommendations for the council.

The council then considered those recommendations, rejecting some and approving others. Among the rejected recommendations was a proposal for a civilian oversight board. But among the approved recommendations was the formation of a police-community relations board.

This Laramie Police Advisory Board fills that role.

The advisory board was initially recommended as a “Citizen Review Board,” but the name was amended this week to better reflect its advisory role.

Originally, the board included both the police chief and the city manager as voting members. But during second reading, councilors removed them. Members of the public had argued it made no sense for the chief to take votes on advice meant for him.

The advisory board is not an oversight board, as councilors have reminded the public throughout this approval process. Mayor Harrington said he still believes an oversight board is an idea worth exploring, despite that proposal’s narrow defeat last year.

But Harrington said the advisory board represents a path forward that is “radically in the middle” and that most residents will find palatable.

“I don’t think it’s something that any of us campaigned on,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something any of us is leaving this meeting thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s everything I wanted or close to it.’ But I think what it is is a reasonable approach that fits Laramie.”