
Liam Beran
A Madison Police car parked on State Street.
The office's relationship with the Madison Police Department has been strong, according to Independent Monitor Robin Copley.
At a recent community meeting hosted by Madison’s new police oversight agency, Independent Monitor Robin Copley posed two questions: What qualities would people like to see in Madison’s next police chief? And what police policy would they like to see reviewed or revised?
About 20 people, including two alders, provided feedback, but there is a catch. As Copley herself acknowledges, her office has limited power to act on these suggestions.
“We have the authority to make policy recommendations, but we don't have the authority to actually pass any kind of policy — that would fall to the Common Council,” Copley says in an interview. She adds that the feedback sessions are nevertheless helpful in providing a picture of what the community wants from its police force.
The office also has no hiring or firing authority over police officers or a new chief; Shon Barnes recently announced he was resigning from the department after serving for four years. That responsibility falls to the Police and Fire Commission, an independent body responsible for the “the hiring, promotion, discipline, and terminations of police.” Its five commissioners are appointed by the mayor. Assistant Police Chief John Patterson, who will take over as interim chief once Barnes leaves on Feb. 1, says in an email that the commission has “final hiring authority” for the city’s police and fire departments, including the position of chief.
Copley says her office has a “conversational” role in the new chief’s hiring and that the feedback gathered at the Jan. 17 community meeting will largely be used by the monitor and its civilian oversight board to put together metrics for the agency’s required annual review of the police chief’s performance.
The office’s other powers include: monitoring the police department’s compliance with its policies, processing complaints, investigating police department personnel subject to complaints, and appointing legal counsel for aggrieved individuals who wish to take a personnel complaint to the police and fire commission.
At the meeting, Ald. Sabrina Madison urged the city’s future new chief to re-engage with groups “who lots of folks in the city may refer to as ‘hostile’ to police or ‘anti-police.’ I’d like to see whomever is going to be leading MPD make a conscious effort to reach out to those groups.”
Ald. Nikki Conklin would like to see greater accountability when an officer violates rules.
“There’s things like, how long are people on administrative leave for? How long are they still getting paid for? Are they going to get fired? Do they get fired?” said Conklin. “I just want to see more follow-through on what their punishment is.”
Copley says similar community outreach meetings will be held monthly, adding that the agency hopes to provide a “bridge” between residents and the police department. She says the office expects to respond quickly with recommendations to pressing community concerns. All the office’s recommendations, she says, will be issued in their annual report.
Historically, police oversight agencies and civilian review boards have often faced pushback from police departments resistant to oversight, according to a nationwide 2021 review conducted by The Washington Post.
Copley says she had a strong working relationship with Barnes, with whom she discussed access to department records and the implementation of body cameras for police officers. In their first meeting, Copley says, Barnes was “very excited” to start working with the monitor and said there is benefit for the community and police departments from having an oversight agency.
The same holds for the department’s soon-to-be interim chief: “Patterson, in particular, has been present at a lot of our meetings and…basically his number is on speed dial. We're talking with them a lot, and we have a really great working relationship with this administration.”
Patterson says the department looks forward to future collaborations with the monitor office and civilian board.
“For the past four years, MPD has been committed to working collaboratively with the [civilian board] and [monitor],” writes Patterson in an email. “This collaborative work has included policy discussions.”
Among rank-and-file officers, there’s support for independent oversight too, Copley says. If an officer doesn’t feel comfortable notifying the police and fire commission of an infraction, the monitor office offers another venue. Beyond community concerns, the monitor agency also has the ability to recommend changes that benefit police department functions, including such things as promoting equitable hiring and preventing discriminatory supervisory practices.
The public benefits from those changes, she says.
“All of these things, they bleed out into the community,” Copley says. “If you don't have a well-functioning department, then that department is going to draw a significant amount of complaints.”