Op-Ed: Police Cannot Police Themselves – a Plea to Consider a Citizen Review Board
By Skip Banach • August 27, 2023Police cannot police themselves; they will never cross that thin blue line. To do so is to ostracize yourself from the rest of law enforcement. Try to go to another department, the stigma of not being loyal follows you, you will not be hired. Promotion within your department, will not happen.
This and the reasons listed below are why Civilian Review Board is not only needed, but is crucial to hold law enforcement accountable, resulting in an unbiased review of law enforcement actions.
This is the letter I sent to the City of Star.
“Star City Council,
I hope this letter finds all of you in good health and high spirits. I am writing to again express my strong support for the establishment of a Civilian Review Board to oversee our city’s Police Department. This is a crucial step toward ensuring transparency, accountability, and fairness in our law enforcement practices. I believe there are several compelling reasons for the creation of such a board, and I would like to outline them for your consideration.
- Accountability: A Civilian Review Board plays a pivotal role in holding our Police Department accountable for its actions. It provides an independent body of community representatives to investigate complaints of police misconduct, ensuring that officers are answerable for their behavior. This accountability is fundamental in maintaining public trust.
- Transparency: Transparency is a cornerstone of a just and equitable society. A Civilian Review Board ensures that action and decisions of our law enforcement are open to scrutiny by citizens. This transparency builds public confidence in our Police Department and helps dispel any misconceptions or mistrust.
- Community Trust: In order for the police to effectively protect and serve our community, they must have the trust of the residents they serve. A Civilian Review Board represents an opportunity to strengthen the bond between our Police Department and the community, as it demonstrates a commitment to address concerns and improves police-community relations.
- Impartiality: An independent Civilian Review Board operates without bias or conflicts of interest. This impartiality is vital in ensuring that investigations to alleged police misconduct are conducted fairly and without favoritism, ultimately leading to just outcomes.
- Systemic Improvements: By regularly reviewing and analyzing complaints and incidents, a Civilian Review Board can identify patterns of misconduct and recommend systemic improvements. This proactive approach can help our Police Department continuously evolve and enhance its practices.
- Community Input: Involving civilians in the oversight of our Police Department ensures that a diverse range of perspective is considered in the decision-making process. This diversity of thought can lead to more inclusive and community-oriented policing strategies.
- Checks and Balances: Like any government entity, law enforcement agencies require checks and balances to prevent abuses of power. A Civilian Review Board provides an additional layer of oversight, helping to maintain a healthy balance of authority.
In conclusion, the establishment of a Civilian Review Board is not a critique of our Police Department but rather a proactive step toward enhancing its effectiveness, transparency, and accountability. It is an investment in the safety and well-being of our community, ensuring that our law enforcement operates in a matter that respects the rights and dignity of all residents.
AdvertisementI respectfully urge you to consider the creation of a Civilian Review Board for our city’s Police Department. This initiative will not only strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the community but also contribute to a safer, fairer, and more harmonious city for all its residents.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
Sincerely, Skip Banach”
AdvertisementThis Op-Ed was submitted by Skip Banach. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.
Tags: Accountability, Ada County Prosecuting Attorney, Citizen Review Board, City of Star, Civilian Review Board, Complaints, Misconduct, Office of Police Accountability, Police, Skip Banach, Star City Council, Star Idaho, Star Police, Transparency
22 thoughts on “Op-Ed: Police Cannot Police Themselves – a Plea to Consider a Citizen Review Board”
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Totally agree with Banach on this article. I am s loyal supporter of our local law enforcement but they must have oversight and must weed out the bad. Because of their internal structure this is impossible for them to do on their own and this is what continues to get them in trouble.
Please contact your local mayor, city council, ADA County Commissioner. They need to know the public supports transparency for law enforcement.
Skip and Gina Banach are the parents of 39-year-old Jeremy Banach, who was shot and killed by police in Star on June 15, 2022.
This shooting was not investigated by “their own”. It was investigated by the Ada County Prosecutor and reviewed by the Valley County Prosecutor.
Skip and Gina called and told police Jeremy was trespassing on their property, on drugs, in possession of a stolen gun (Skip’s) and refusing to leave.
Here is the video of the incident:
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/investigations/7-investigates/local-ada-county-sheriffs-office-releases-body-camera-surveillance-video-of-police-shooting/277-748ffbf7-a080-48f4-8042-c6bb71f4efe0
I agree with Banach. Every community could make police departments more transparent and improve operations with a citizen review board. It’s something that would benefit every state.
You are too sensitive….all the liberal review boards across the country are too political and hate law enforcement. So you are wrong!
This controversial issue needs a lot more consideration before leaping into the anarchist/Marxist culture sweeping the country today…especially in Star, which has no cop problems like Boise or Caldwell.
Study the proposal? Sure. But soon you’ll have Boise, Portland, Chicago and San Francesspool — all of which have Citizen Review Boards, right here in Star.
Do you libtards ever run out of counter-culture ideas?
I have known Skip and his family for over 26 years. They are very good people and he himself served as a police officer. This is not some political issue.
You obviously by your ignorant comments about him being liberal and so on don’t know anything about him or have anything useful to add to the the discussion.
Oh…and one more thing. Looks like Skippy got a couple of his Marxist friends to chime in on this same site to supposedly agree with his sputum.
Remember the reasons you left the place from which you came!
If you would like to turn the treasure valley into San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, START with citizen oversight over the police.
As a former police officer who walked away from the profession with 15 years left to move to Star and saw countless outstanding police offers do the same, I will try my best to provide you with some insight from personal experience.
For example, do you think a school teacher or carpenter should oversee a surgeon in the emergency room to make sure the surgeon followed policy and procedure? Should not someone with the same level of experience or more who has had the experience of making critical life saving decisions with split seconds to make it be the one to oversee the surgeon? Most of the boards on police oversight committees have NO experience in the field outside of their college degrees. The oversight boards are filled with former public defenders and civil rights activists-none have prior law enforcement field experience.
Once the oversight boards learn that an overwhelming majority of officers do their job well, they then target the most proactive police officers (the ones that made the most arrests) and solicit complaints from suspects to justify their existence and inflated budgets. Proactive officers then find themselves off the streets dealing with countless solicited investigations.
After citizen oversight complete their investigation and find that a majority of the original complaints are unfounded, they then begin to discipline the officer for violations not related to the complaint. For example, “though the the investigation revealed that the officer did not make a racist comment”, “did not make a rude comment”, or “did not assault the complainant”, the investigation revealed that the officer “forgot to complete a form”, “did not check a box”, was “late in to turning on the body worn camera, “did not have their name tag attached properly”, or “did not have their seatbelt on”.
The oversight groups then campaigned for policy changes that bog down the police officers with documentation over the most minute things to intentionally pull officers away from what they love the most-being on the street keeping the community safe. This requires officers to spend most of their time in the office completing redundant reports. The policy changes also force officers to do their job with one hand tied behind their back.
What are the results of these few examples? It destroys moral in the police departments. Many senior officers with the most experience retire early, many move to different departments, some quite altogether, and many move to Star. Those who choose to stay, prefer not intervene and wait to arrive after the aftermath. Some second guess their decisions, and some choose not to make one at all and freeze under pressure.
What other job is there out there where an individual has so much skin the game? Your local police officer puts his life, freedom, and possessions on the line every time he puts on his or her uniform. And they do their job while carrying a camera on their body. I do not know any other profession (including politicians) who would do their job with a camera attached to their body recording every minute of their day.
Each city chooses their fate. San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland have already chosen. That is why they are short hundreds of officers. Good thing Star still gets to decide its own.
Excellent….doubt the parents of the adult child will read your comment….Skippy and Gina are looking for a wrongful death law suit….!
Thank you for a very thoughtful, mature, well reasoned reply — grounded in reality from someone who has “been there.”
I agree with you and I also agree that someone needs to police the police.
Sometimes parts of the public do not realize that it is good cops who investigate, arrest and fire bad cops. Other times there are just bad optics in an arrest or use of force situation.
Bad optics do not necessarily equate to bad policing. The “reasonable and necessary”standard is the proper lens. To your point, the general public does not have that lens because they’ve not faced the realities of the job. A frame of reference is necessary so that we don’t can a good cop or keep a bad or dangerously incompetent one
The job is often confrontational. There is no pretty way to arrest what we call a “no person.”
“The policeman’s world is spawned of degradation, corruption, and insecurity. He walks alone, a pedestrian in Hell.” — William Westly.
I served thirty-two years. I’ve long advocated making the chief of police an elected position.
Every police contact either builds or erodes public trust. In the case of Star Police, it is actually the Ada County Sheriff’s Office providing police services to the city by contract.
Early in my career I was a use of force instructor and sat on a peer review board where I recommended termination of an officer for shooting at a vehicle under indefensible circumstances.
There is no perfect person. Therefore, there is no perfect officer. They all go through the same training, but are not the same and will react differently in split seconds to the same circumstances.
Every agency has a culture. Hiring brave and virtuous officers with a servant’s heart and inculcating an “oath-centered” operating philosophy through hand-picking the (FTO) Field Training Officers is essential.
The Marxist War on Cops in the media is resulting in people like you (sadly) leaving or not applying in the first place. Nationally, the bar is being lowered and still the ranks are not being filled.
The objective is for chaos to deliver a federal police force to fill the vacuum and restore order with an iron fist.
Every authoritarian country has a national security force. DHS will broaden its footprint over time replacing local agencies. A game of whack a mole will be played on the public as bad cops are just moved around the country rather than being fired or prosecuted when necessary.
Accountability is essential to guard the public trust. This happens best by “The People” being empowered to vet, elect and recall their chief as they do their sheriff.
Doug Traubel ran for Ada County Sheriff in 2022 and I’d the author of Red Badge—A Veteran Peace Officer’s Commentary on the Marxist Subversion of American Law Enforcement & Culture
James Junge since you don’t have facts correct and your form of an argument is to label people you don’t know with defamatory names, here are some facts. The City of Boise does not have a citizens review board. They have an Office for Police Accountability that reports to the city council. The City of San Francisco has a Department of Police Accountability. Do your research, this is not what a Citizens Review Board is. The County of San Diego, the City of Anaheim and the city of Las Vegas all have active citizens review board and many other major cities that you probably don’t consider “counter culture” cities. The Department of Justice has a complete manual on what a review board is, what they do and how to implement one. Why don’t you contact “Skippy” and have a conversation?
Gina…looks like it comes down to PARENTING or the lack there of on you and Skippy’s part!
I think Skip and Gina should move back to Kali4nia where they can be consumed in the wokeness of the filth of LA/SF et al……can you see law suit coming? Beware City of Star
Where is your compassion?
Until you are in these folks shoes, loosing a loved one, actually having their loved one lured away only to be gunned down in the street – short 4 times in the BACK, the 5th bullet ended up in a neighboring house in the line of fire. Poor backdrop procedure and many others.
Once children leave the house, even a two parent loving environment, these adult children are responsible for their actions.
With so many good qualified LEO’s leaving the force – it is now the bottom of the barrel folks that are being hired – all standards are being lowered – I doubt they would have passed a psychological or polygraph test even 10 years ago.
This world is hard enough with out bullying, taking potshots at these grieving parents on these message boards.
This isn’t the Wild West…. even when a lawman in the Wild West shot someone in the back, said lawman was considered a coward. This is true today, when did it become popular to shoot a fleeing person or suspect in the back? How many people have been shot in the back by Idaho’s LEO’s?
Perhaps Idaho should change its state mascot from a potato to a man laying in the street in a pool of his own blood with 4 bullet holes in his back. All in the name of good law enforcement, of course.
All for a citizens “review board” after it has been properly investigated by an outside agency and a decision has been reached by special prosecutor. They can review and recommend policy changes, however the final decision would be given by the chief of police and city council or the Sheriff as they are an elected official. Interestingly enough, why is it always the police who need a citizen review board. If we are going to do that maybe all elected officials should be under the thumb. I mean really, the police have thier own agency police, mutual aid agreement policy with outside critical incident investigations. They then have a internal parallel investigation, POST decertification investigation, FBI inquiry and civil rights investigation and then a DOJ review. They are then scrutinized by the public, the media and every liberal democrat. Unless of course it lends in their political favor like January 6th. Bottom line, a citizens review board should have no power to fire or charge or set an indictment We don’t need another uniformed opinion adding to the liberal media spin. If the author wants to be involved, he can apply for the next police job opportunity or run for elected office. Then he can feel the love of pissed off citizens when a decision is made in split second that involves life and death so he can get second guessed by very person on the planet who reads the internet story. Welcome to reality!
Travis, nicely stated.
Sorry… but no. This article is so full of half truths and outright lies it’s hard to even read. Watch the full news report on the shooting of this man’s son. HE and his wife called the police because their drug addict son wouldn’t leave their property and had stolen their gun. They got him off the property peacefully and professionally and he was unharmed. But now you’ve got cops in full knowledge that a drug addled idiot with mental illness issues and a stolen gun is walking around town, so they followed up to try and retrieve the gun. The idiot refused their REPEATED commands do drop the gun and NOT to walk into a residential neighborhood. Then when appearing to point the gun at his own head, he also appears to put another officer as well as residents in the neighborhood in danger.
Banach says “police won’t police themselves”? That’s a gross misrepresentation of what happened. 1) the entire case was reviewed by prosecutors, not by the police. 2) it was referred to prosecutors in a different country to ensure independence. 3) the officers’ body cam footage shows CLEARLY that they repeatedly made every effort to get this idiot to comply peacefully.
What Banach is claiming is that they police should’ve simply let their drug addict son with a stolen gun wander through the streets. The police here did nothing wrong, and appear to have been fully transparent as well as reviewed by independent third parties NOT within the force.
So based on THIS, Banach wants Idaho to start adopting asinine liberal policies that have destroyed the rule of law in blue-shit-holes around the country. The problem here isn’t the police, or lack of oversight, or policy. The problem here is the parent of a criminal waging war on the police for doing what they had to do to deal with the threat BANACH and his WIFE turned loose on the community.
So tell me this had the cops done their due diligence at the home where they stated they could tell he was under the influence as it’s illegal to have weapon of any sort while being under the influence why they did not ask for the gun before telling him he was fine to go multiple times even after the gun fell from his waistband as he was leaving the home they could have at that point said to keep walking leave the gun on the ground and they would not have had to go fix a problem that they had created as u say the parents let him loose . Wrong the cops let him go with a gun under the influence and full well knowing his situation . Then after holding the gun to his head not towards officers is a plea for help not a threat towards residence or officers. Then being shot in the back 5 times with an AR15 from 8 feet away with one bullet found in a resident home later. Put residents and other community residents at danger , Also the weapon the boy carried had the safety on and in order for it to b shot had to have the hammer cocked which law enforcement knew because they were fully aware of the weapon he had on his persons from the 1st interaction at the home. This is a carry state so different procedures need to be in place so that people don’t get shot in the back over and over had they done their job at the house it never would have escalated to the point where someone was killed . Now RED WEST what’s the point of u name calling the dead do you hear ur self you sound like a 15 year old boy who only has the balls to be a keyboard gangster thinking you sound cool . To bash like that sounds like a petty jab for attention think about if u had lost someone and a nobody like ur self was just bashing ur loved one ? Your the only idiot I see here so I think maybe you should ur idiotic comment to urself also if one as u stated was mentally unstable then he should have been told to leave with any weapon and put in a psychiatric hold . Or they could have arrested him at the house for what is illegal in the state of Idaho to be under the influence and carrying a weapon of any sort.
Red West you are a really disgusting human being!! I honestly for you don’t have children!
He was an adult who was loved by many that had an issue with drugs and his family was trying to help him. That does not make him a terrible person. Your comment is filled with ridiculous and pure ignorance. People like you would do best to keep your ignorant and disgusting comments to yourself!!
So tell me this had the cops done their due diligence at the home where they stated they could tell he was under the influence as it’s illegal to have weapon of any sort while being under the influence why they did not ask for the gun before telling him he was fine to go multiple times even after the gun fell from his waistband as he was leaving the home they could have at that point said to keep walking leave the gun on the ground and they would not have had to go fix a problem that they had created as u say the parents let him loose . Wrong the cops let him go with a gun under the influence and full well knowing his situation . Then after holding the gun to his head not towards officers is a plea for help not a threat towards residence or officers. Then being shot in the back 5 times with an AR15 from 8 feet away with one bullet found in a resident home later. Put residents and other community residents at danger , Also the weapon the boy carried had the safety on and in order for it to b shot had to have the hammer cocked which law enforcement knew because they were fully aware of the weapon he had on his persons from the 1st interaction at the home. This is a carry state so different procedures need to be in place so that people don’t get shot in the back over and over had they done their job at the house it never would have escalated to the point where someone was killed . Now RED WEST what’s the point of u name calling the dead do you hear ur self you sound like a 15 year old boy who only has the balls to be a keyboard gangster thinking you sound cool . To bash like that sounds like a petty jab for attention think about if u had lost someone and a nobody like ur self was just bashing ur loved one ? Your the only idiot I see here so I think maybe you should ur idiotic comment to urself also if one as u stated was mentally unstable then he should have been told to leave with any weapon and put in a psychiatric hold . Or they could have arrested him at the house for what is illegal in the state of Idaho to be under the influence and carrying a weapon of any sort.