The city of Columbus has officially launched a review of the Columbus Police Department’s special operations group.
A committee formed to review the group met for the first time Thursday in the CPD command center off Main Street. The meeting lasted about two hours. Roughly an hour and a half of that took place behind closed doors, in executive session, while the committee reviewed footage from traffic stops and arrests made by the special operations group.
The city council formed the committee — comprised of several councilmen and members of the public — in the wake of the police-involved shooting death of Columbus resident Ricky Ball on Oct. 16.
Since Ball’s death, former police chief Tony Carleton has resigned, one officer involved in the incident has been fired and two others have been suspended. Meanwhile, state officials continue to investigate the circumstances around the 26-year-old’s death.
The three officers present the night Ball was shot were part of CPD’s special operations group, or SOG.
‘We’ve had complaints’
Ward 5 councilman Kabir Karriem, who is on the review committee, requested that CPD Interim Chief Fred Shelton gather the past six months’ worth of stops and arrests made by the SOG for the committee to review.
“We’ve had some complaints about the SOG unit and I thought this would be a good time to go through some of the stops for the past six months,” Karriem said during Thursday’s meeting. “We will look at the location, number of stops, what actions were taken on the stops, the time of day of the stops, gender and race of the people that were stopped, and more importantly, did (officers) follow procedure when they stopped.”
Ward 3 councilman Marty Turner, who is also on the committee, said he hoped to review complaints received for officers in the SOG and if any disciplinary action was taken as a result of those complaints.
A significant portion of Thursday’s meeting focused on the unit’s body camera usage — the night Ball was shot, none of the officers involved had activated their body cameras prior to or during the shooting.
Shelton said he’d gathered about 5,000 hours of body camera footage. The committee reviewed several videos — which Shelton said were randomly selected — during executive session.
Columbus Mayor Robert Smith said the committee will not review any video from the Ball case, which is still under investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
Shelton said officers are supposed to activate their body cameras before any interaction with the public, regardless of the subject. At the end of each shift, officers are required to download body camera footage, which is stored on a server.
The Ball shooting has already generated some change to CPD’s body camera policy. A revised edition of the policy — dated Nov. 25 — notes that officers “found negligent in the proper use of body cameras within a twelve-month period” may be suspended without pay for three days or demoted.
Karriem said the committee’s review could lead to further disciplinary measures against SOG officers if the committee finds any policy violations.
“What I’m hoping that is if any other polices were violated, we can bring it back before the mayor and council, and then they would take appropriate action or what they need to do as far as any other disciplinary actions for these officers that might still be on the force,” Karriem said.
Smith said he found the meeting to be very helpful for generating discussion about how to progress potential changes for the SOG. He said the videos were particularly useful in that regard.
“We saw on several instances where one (officer) might have had the camera on and two didn’t have the camera on,” Smith said. “So it was very helpful there.”
The committee will meet again Wednesday.
Smith said the committee will present recommendations to the full council after its meetings.
SOG details
Carleton introduced the SOG in March.
At the time, he said the group would conduct foot patrols in neighborhoods with higher crime volume, such as those surrounding Sim Scott Park, meet with residents and stay on top of “quality of life” issues. He said each of the four officers would have a cell phone residents could call anonymously if they see suspicious behavior, rather than call 911 and leave their names. Those numbers are available upon request, Carleton said, and should remove residents’ fear of reprisal for reporting suspicious or criminal activity.
The SOG review committee is made up of Ward 1 Councilman Gene Taylor, Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box, Turner, Karriem and Smith, as well as civilians Lavonne Harris, Berry Hinds, Kamal Karriem, Steven L. James, Lee Roy Lollar and Tiffany Sturdivant.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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