Chesapeake needs more police oversight

Everyone believes the Chesapeake Police Department thoroughly reviewed every conceivable facet of the drug raid and shooting death of police Detective Jarrod Shivers. The frustration, for Chesapeake residents especially, is that police officials have said so little about what that formal internal investigation found.

Ryan Frederick was convicted last month in the 2008 slaying of the police veteran during the incident in Portlock. Police eventually found only a small amount of marijuana at Frederick's home. He now faces formal sentencing this spring.

Following the raid and trial, the Tidewater Libertarian Party has asked city officials to set up a police oversight board. Don Tabor, who addressed City Council last week on the issue, said party members are concerned about police procedures, the reliability of narcotics warrants and forcible entry of homes.

The request isn't unexpected; that doesn't mean it should be ignored.

The National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement says about 150 police departments nationwide have oversight bodies with different levels of authority. Several are in cities roughly Chesapeake's size, including St. Paul, Minn., and Riverside, Calif. The boards probe a variety of issues, including police shootings of civilians, shootings of police officers and complaints about excessive force.

Such boards don't supplant the need for internal affairs staffs. They do, however, give citizens the assurance that an independent body is reviewing a department's actions. In the past, the Chesapeake branch of the NAACP sought establishment of such a board.

Of course, if a department is generally open and transparent with residents, there's little need for such bodies. Police Chief Kelvin Wright, on the job less than a year, has communicated with residents and the media much more than his predecessor did.

Wright, however, has declined to say much about what the completed internal probe found in the Shivers case. He said through a spokesman last week the investigation looked at "the actions of our personnel, in which case privacy rights attach."

Can't names be redacted, if that's a concern? Couldn't an executive summary be released? The department executes dozens of drug raids each year successfully. It's critical for the public to know exactly what went wrong in the Frederick case.

The department said last year that besides equipping special investigations section officers with more protective tactical vests, there would be no changes to policy.

That's a response, but not a satisfying one. Nor will it reduce the cries to set up a police oversight board in Chesapeake.