The city of Antioch is taking a major step towards rebuilding trust between the community and its police department by creating its first ever police oversight commission.
It comes as the city deals with the fallout of last year’s racist text messaging scandal within the police department and the eventual federal indictments of several of its officers at the center of the scandal.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe said Wednesday that a police oversight commission has been long overdue. But it took recent events over the past year to get city officials on board.
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“After so many federal indictments, state charges, two investigations by the state of California, including the Attorney General's Office and the Antioch Police Department, these investigations related to racist text messaging that decimated our police numbers, it is very clear that we really need an oversight,” he said.
The seven-member police commission comes from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from community organizers to lawyers.
It will be similar to other police commissions around the Bay Area, serving as a governing board to create accountability for the police department.
Devin Williams, a longtime community organizer in Antioch, was selected as a member of the new commission. He believes the commission can help the community move forward and rebuild trust with the police department.
“This is something that. the community needs in order to move forward. We need a community, citizen-led commission such as this made of leaders who are well-versed in what the city needs,” he said.
While the specifics of the commission’s duties still need to be hammered out, community leaders believe it’s a step in the right direction.
“In other words, the police are not going to police themselves. Because that's what has been happening, police have just been policing themselves,” said community activist Nicole Arrington.
The next steps for the commission will be to decide on leadership roles before holding public meetings. Hernandez-Thorpe hopes the commission is up and running with those meetings as early as next month.
