Board members urge more outreach, complaint access after NACOL conference

At a Community Police Review Board meeting, board members who attended the NACOL (National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement) conference summarized best practices and urged the board to prioritize public education and community outreach.

Leticia/Latricia Beasley Day, who represented Modesto at the conference, said oversight works best when it is rooted in community voice and recommended improving public communications and accessibility. "We are informed, consulted, and occasionally heard, but we do not yet hold meaningful decision making power," she said, invoking the Armstein ladder of citizen participation to argue the board should aim to move beyond tokenism.

Nancy Smith reviewed oversight models from other cities — including Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Berkeley — and emphasized that an oversight body's authority depends on its enabling statute. She recommended drafting a succinct public-facing flyer or packet describing the board’s role and suggested the board be given access to complaint data (with complainant names redacted but officer badge numbers retained) to better identify patterns. "We need access to actual citizen complaints with the names of the complainants redacted and the officers' names, but not their badge numbers redacted so that we could begin to have more of a feel of what's going on in the community," Smith said.

Members asked that conference notes and presentation links be collected and shared where copyright allows. Staff and legal counsel cautioned that presenter materials may be subject to copyright and suggested distribution be vetted through city channels. Several members recommended adding complaint-process review, AI/technology briefings (facial recognition, license-plate readers, case-management tools) and outreach planning as future agenda items for January.