The Rock Hill City Council approved the establishment of a citizen review board last September that would examine civilian complaints levied against the city’s police department and its officers.
The citizen review board will consist of six citizens selected by Rock Hill City Council members based on the regional wards that each official represents, as well as an individual selected by the mayor. A retired police officer will also temporarily sit on the board as an advisor for the first year of it’s activity.
“The citizen review board aims to provide a platform for legitimate concerns from citizens on police behavior,” said City Council Member for Ward 5, Nikita Jackson. “It will bring a sense of security and also allow citizens to know that we care about how they feel in regards to grievances they have with our police department. We were being very proactive in the wake of everything that has been going on nationally in trying to establish a citizen’s review board so that our citizens will know that they can have a neutral party that will hear their concerns with the police department.”
Apostle Dr. Norma Gray, president of the Rock Hill branch of the NAACP and Rock Hill Mayor John Getty’s selected candidate for the board, was the primary advocate for the board’s creation and had campaigned for its implementation for several years. Gray stated that Rock Hill Chief of Police, Chris Watts’, private approval of the review board in early 2020 was the spark that enabled her to galvanize the community to begin building the citizen review board’s proposal.
“Right before the pandemic and social distancing really started hitting hard in March, we began holding community meetings at the Freedom Center where the NAACP office was,” said Gray. “We had about 70 individuals at our first meeting where we laid out our proposal and took questions and suggestions in terms of what we wanted it to look like.”
“As the pandemic moved, we had to make everything virtual. We created an online platform on Facebook called ‘The Citizen Review Board’, where we broke down into individual groups so we could really focus on inclusivity. We reached out to the Muslim community, we reached out to the Hispanic community, we reached out to the LGBTQ community. We wanted to hear from every sector of the community in terms of what they wanted a citizen review board to look like, which is how we got started preparing a proposal we could present to the city council.”
Gray believes that the board will help bolster trust between citizens and police officers in the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality over the past year.
“I think it’s important because in the climate we live in right now, there’s a real lack of trust among the common community with police departments. I believe the citizen review board will help bring the level of trust up so the average person will begin to have more faith in police again. I think it’s great that we can organize an unbiased, autonomous group of individuals that are committed to seeing that our police are reviewed and respected, and that communities can work towards rebuilding trust and transparency with police,” said Gray.
The city council’s 5-1 decision follows in the footsteps of other cities such as Columbia and Charlotte, which have created similar citizen review boards. The board’s nominated members are expected to be finalized by the end of January and begin operating sometime after, according to Gray.
Winthrop University Police Department’s Assistant Chief of Police Charles Yearta told The Johnsonian that the city’s citizen review board will not have a relationship with the WUPD, but believes that the decision is a step in the right direction and wishes to implement a similar idea at Winthrop.
“Although WUPD and RHPD have a close working relationship and maintain open lines of communications, we are governed by separate entities. RHPD reports to the Rock Hill City Manager, who then answers to the City Council. WUPD reports to the Vice President of Student Affairs, who then answers to the President of Winthrop University and the Board of Trustees. For this reason, it would be improper for the City Council to have governance over WUPD. However, WUPD listens to
any complaints or concerns that any individual or entity has with our operation.”
“I believe that in today’s society, transparency of a law enforcement agency to the community that they serve is not only healthy, but critical to their operation and success. Unfortunately and too often, the inner working of an organization remains unknown or unclear to those not employed within it. This can lead to confusion and mistrust among the public in which they serve. Alternatively, transparency and open lines of communication allow for an organization to not only keep the trust they are allotted with, but to rebuild it in areas where it may have been diminished. It is for this reason that WUPD is in the initial planning stage of attempting to initiate a similar concept as the Rock Hill Citizen Review Board, on the campus of Winthrop University.”
Photo by Emma Crouch
