David Michael Miller
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval feels vindicated. He says a yearlong study of the police department by consultants from the OIR Group affirms that “this is a very good department striving to be an even better department.”
“It has, at times, been speculated that the OIR report would be some sort of repudiation on staffing. Or the report would be this bombshell blast that MPD’s culture is running off its rails,” Koval tells Isthmus. “Some hoped that this would be an indictment of MPD. Quite frankly, it’s nowhere near an indictment.”
On Dec. 14, the OIR Group released its 258-page report with 146 recommendations to improve policing in Madison. In its Jan. 31 response, the police department enthusiastically accepted many of the suggestions. Koval says the report will help guide strategic planning.
However, the police department is pushing back against the OIR Group’s most critical recommendations. In its report, consultants find MPD isn’t providing annual performance evaluations for its officers and lacks documentation of day-to-day community policing efforts in the field. It recommends Madison police adopt a higher standard for deploying force and to be more transparent when officer-involved shootings do occur.
In its response, MPD states in these areas OIR Group “misses the mark.”
Even so, Koval says the report is being embraced as a resource to take the department “to an even higher level of exceptionalism.”
“I hope it doesn’t sound like we had dug our heels in,” Koval says. “We will use this [report] as a cornerstone and we will try to build upon the successes and the recommendations for improvement.”
Koval admits he initially saw no need for the audit, which was commissioned after several officer-involved shootings in Madison and around the country sparked protests and calls for more oversight of police. Before alders approved the $372,000 study in 2016, Koval scoffed at the price tag. He scolded alders for “currying favor with a small group of people who protest/blog/criticize the MPD at every turn.”
Nonetheless, Koval pledged full cooperation with consultants. “Bring it on. We have nothing to hide and much to brag about.”
The OIR Group spent most of 2017 evaluating the police. The department says it provided reams of documents for review and “spent hundreds, if not thousands, of work hours” participating in the study. Dozens of other city officials and community members were also interviewed.
The report praises Madison police for pledging to devote at least 50 percent of its officers’ time to “problem-oriented policing.” But consultants say “there is a paucity of data about what officers are actually doing in the field.”
“As a result, there is little current ability for MPD to learn to what degree any officer has integrated community policing strategies into his or her activity, and even less ability to incentivize officers to do so,” the report states.
OIR consultant Michael Gennaco says that’s why the group recommends officers keep daily activity logs and the department create annual performance evaluations that incentivize progressive policing.
“What the current administration supports, in their writings, we don’t know whether that’s going on in the field,” Gennaco told Isthmus in January. “I’m not sure the police chief can say that’s happening out in the field.”
Koval disagrees. “[Officers] are well supervised. I believe that no one is ... going through the motions,” Koval says. “Our people are very busy, very active.”
In its response, MPD says it doesn’t know of any other department its size that requires daily logs. Koval says he’s open to exploring better ways to track community policing efforts but says these initiatives are often difficult to turn into “meaningful data.”
“I can tell you how many contacts my mental health officers and neighborhood resource officers are having,” Koval says. “The cause and the effect is what’s going to be more difficult to capture.”
As for annual performance evaluations, MPD argues that reviews are ongoing as its current policy calls for employees to formally meet with their direct supervisor each quarter.
“We are looking at fashioning something that would be uniquely suited to the MPD,” says Koval.
The department is arguably most resistant to the report’s recommendation to “go beyond” the constitutional standard for using deadly force, calling it “unwise.” The city attorney’s office agrees.
“The city attorney is aware of no police department in the United States thatsubjects its officers to a more stringent standard for using deadly force,” writes the city attorney’s office in its own response to the report. “Employing a more stringent standard may have the unintended effect of making the city and its officers open to greater liability, as claims might be made that failure to meet the city’s new self-imposed standard was actionable.”
Koval adds that the report finds “the department’s force use is limited in volume and primarily minor in nature.”
And he pledges the department will “always use the least restrictive, the least oppressive, the least amount of force in any consensual encounter with a person.”
“I don’t disagree that there have been instances even in our own city where the lawful elements have been maintained but could we or should we improve on the optics? Of course,” Koval says. “But we are doing 15,000 to 18,000 cop-to-citizen contacts monthly. We are statistically well below 1 percent where we even go hands on with people.”
The department supports one ambitious recommendation: Establishing an independent police auditor’s office to provide oversight.
“That has a line item in terms of cost,” Koval says. “If public officials think that’s what it’s going to take to create another layer of trust and transparency, I’m not against it.”
The city attorney isn’t opposed either but warns further investigation is needed to avoid violating state laws regarding the authority of the Madison Police and Fire Commission, the traditional body in charge of police oversight.
Still, Koval takes exception to OIR’s assessment of the department’s discipline process — one reason consultants favor an independent auditor.
The consultant notes “that no internal cases in at least six years” have been brought to the commission. “In our experience in working with numerous police agencies, we have yet to encounter one like MPD where years have passed and no officer has challenged a disciplinary determination,” the report states. “It would be akin to a criminal justice system in which every defendant pleaded guilty.”
Koval says he does not “negotiate or settle” disciplinary cases to avoid officer appeals to the Police and Fire Commission. When an officer is found violating the department’s code of conduct, Koval says he alone decides if sanctions are necessary.
“Sometimes it’s discipline and sometimes it’s less than discipline like verbal warning or documented counseling or something like that. But everything from a letter of reprimand up is considered discipline. The union, on an officer’s behalf, can appeal to the Police and Fire Commission,” Koval says. “But I don’t think [the OIR Group] realized, as they audited our internal affairs, this department is pretty clean and has pretty good accountability…. I think they were surprised.”
During the department review, Koval remembers talking to consultants about their disbelief over the “lack of disciplinary cases.”
“I said, could it possibly be that we are hiring a higher character level of people and we are vetting them better. And we have a better, healthy internal culture that people aren’t going to self-subscribe to some sort of blue code,” Koval says. “I would like to believe it’s for those factors as well.”
