Talking about police is always hard. That’s why the council discussion of a Silver City police oversight board has been going on for many months, and it may go on for more.
The citizens advisory and review board was proposed several years ago by a local group, Silver City Citizens for Safety and Community. Who could disagree with citizens pushing for safety and community? Well, lots of people could, starting with the police chief.
The police chief ’s job is to supervise police officers and make sure they work safely for the community. You wouldn’t expect the chief to win the support of his officers by allowing outsiders to judge their performance. And yet there are many examples where police fail in policing themselves.
One example is the 2016 case of Silver City police officer Mark Contreras and Nikki Bascom, which inspired citizens to propose an oversight board in the first place. This newspaper has covered the case many times, and I wrote one column about it, so this summary will be brief.
Contreras and Bascom were in a relationship. They separated against his wishes. She dated somebody else. He threatened her. The threats were reported to the Police Department, but nothing was done. He killed her and himself. Her family sued Silver City.
The town settled for $10 million. The town sold a bond to pay the bill, which we pay back every month with money that could otherwise be spent on roads, utilities and library books.
The sad story is available online if you research it. Suffice it to say the award would probably have been even higher if the case had gone to a jury. Police leaders had many opportunities to discourage Contreras’ threats, but they did nothing.
On the other hand, the police chief says he’s having difficulty recruiting young people to be police officers, and they may not want to work for a town where civilians oversee police work they don’t understand.
That may be true, but it is also true that we would have all been better off if we had had the advisory committee in 2016, and if Officer Contreras had decided it was reason to work elsewhere. Maybe we would have been better off without the other officers and deputies who supported him even as he was threatening his former partner.
This case and the discussion of the advisory board have got everyone’s attention. Local police chiefs and the sheriff are likely to do a better job of oversight now, at least on similar issues. We also have judges doing oversight. An officer who has a lot of cases overturned may have enough sense to adjust their behavior (or maybe not).
If you reach middle age or older, you’re likely to have had some contact with police officers. Most of my police interactions have been good, or at least neutral. But as I get older, it seems weird to have young men or women telling older people how to behave themselves. But I can assure you it’s better to get a traffic ticket and an unwanted lecture than to have your careless driving adjusted by physics.
Everybody likes good cops, and nobody likes bad cops. But the line between the two isn’t always clear, and it’s not obvious how to encourage the one and discourage the other. In all I read about Officer Contreras, I never read anything saying he did a bad job at policing. But if you do your job well 99 percent of the time and make one very big mistake, no one will remember your good citizen interactions.
I never had any desire to be a policeman, but I admire the young people who do. They want to be of service, have some adventure and perhaps be a hero. But it’s easy for the traits that make a good cop to be twisted. You have to be authoritative, but not authoritarian. You have to support your fellow officers so they’ll support you, but you can’t support them unconditionally.
The job involves hours of tedium followed by sudden minutes of crisis. It may be hard for young people with limited experience to deal with domestic violence, drug abuse, homelessness and crime, but seeing disasters daily will get you up to speed in a hurry. As citizens, we want good cops to support us when we inevitably encounter the dark side. We’ll give them a little leeway to be human.
I think a well-designed citizens’ advisory board could improve police work. That doesn’t mean every detail of the proposal is right. The council is right to consider potential side effects and to edit carefully. But the public should have a role in cultivating good police officers and reminding them of who they ultimately serve.
