At the Urbana City Council meeting on September 8th, 2020 (video here), Chicago firm Hillard Heintze presented their report of Aleyah Lewis arrest.
Following the violent arrest of Urbana resident Aleyah Lewis, Urbana Police Department (UPD) performed an internal review of the incident and concluded that the actions of the officers were within UPD policy and procedure (article here).
After two months of residents voicing their outrage at the officers’ use of force, the City of Urbana contracted with Chicago-based law enforcement consulting firm Hillard Heintze for $16,575 not including expenses incurred.
The firm was directed to assess UPD’s policies and whether the internal review of the Lewis incident adhered to those policies (article here).
The Hillard Heintze team, led by Debra Kirby, Senior Vice President (and former Deputy Chief of Police, Chicago Police Department), gave a 30-minute presentation, followed by a session for Council members to ask questions.
Hillard Heintze’s presentation largely echoed their report (released by the City on September 3rd, 2020) in which the team concluded that Sergeant Michael P Cervantes and Officer Eric L Ruff’s use of force while arresting Aleyah Lewis were in compliance the applicable UPD policies (article here).
During the question and answer session, several Council members asked critical questions but could not get meaningful answers from the Hillard Heintze team.
Council member Jared Miller asked about actions that were taken by Sergeant Cervantes in his decision to holster his weapon, engage, and go after Lewis while believing she might be armed.
“It would be my understanding that he should not have ever come out from behind the vehicle while they attempted to gain compliance … I’m interested in why that was not being directly addressed, as him coming up from behind the car while still dealing with an armed subject. Is that inappropriate? Is that appropriate per policy?” asked Miller.
“Well, it kind of goes back to our asks at the beginning, to some extent, in that our mandate was to review the sufficiency of the use of force investigation by the department, and to review the use of force policies. And we’ve veered off from that, if you note, we’ve got into a lot of the different areas we’ve talked about, verbal engagement, control of the rifle. Really, if the engagement was to review all tactics and law enforcement procedures, this could be a much longer report, it could be much, many more months in the coming. So, we’re trying to stay within scope,” answered Senior Director Mark Guiffre.
Council member Dennis Roberts asked, “The public, when they watched the videos that are available, feel outraged, and would you say that they have good reason to feel very upset having watched what appeared to be happening, even though we know that it was following police procedure?”
“I’m wondering what your take was as you watched. Were you concerned? Were you uhm, did you feel that there was an unfortunate incident that could have been perhaps avoided?” added Roberts.
“I think there’s always concern when you have a police use of force in any incident, right, and so the policy and the training, and perspective is important,” answered Debra Kirby. She then proceeded to explain the importance of education to the community regarding expectations that officers have when responding to an incident.
Council member Miller also brought up a questionable aspect of the Lewis arrest – that the safety mechanism of Officer Eric Ruff’s rifle was set to “FIRE” while he was struggling with and beating Lewis (article here). This issue was not addressed by either the UPD review nor the Hillard Heintze review.
“… Officer Ruff’s weapon remained in the “fire” position throughout the arrest … that’s doubly concerning, it’s concerning enough that a rifle is there, so I’m just interested in your professional opinions as to the presence of a rifle, and did you notice the “fire” position remain in the rifle during the arrest, and if you did, why was it not mentioned in the report?” asked Miller.
“I am not aware that the firearm position was “on”, and I’m not sure that came up as part of the review, but based on your concern and your note, we will go back and access whether or not that was a violation of policy, and if it was, if it was noted by the board,” answered Kirby.
Kirby’s answer seemed disingenuous as the Hillard Heintze report stated that the current UPD policy is “silent on the use of rifles during hands-on contact”.
As part of the contract, the Hillard Heintze team also conducted Learning Sessions with community to gain insight on how the City can move forward with community building and strengthening police-community relations. According to the report, the firm invited 50 people from at least 20 different organizations in Urbana but only managed to recruit 18 participants.
When questioned by Council member William Colbrook on why only 18 out of 50 communitty members engaged in this process, Vice President Marcia Thompson answered “I’m not quite sure what the lack of responsiveness was … I really don’t know.”
It is unclear why the firm did not reach out to more members of the community after only receiving a 40% response rate (20 out of 50 people emailed responded).
In addition to the small sample size, participants brought up problems with the way the Hillard Heintze conducted the Learning Sessions.
elizaBeth Simpson, a professional facilitator who participated in the Learning Sessions described her experience in one of the three sessions conducted.
“I can say with absolute confidence that the claim on the opening page of the Lewis report that information is collected with investigative diligence is absolutely absurd. The data gathering and listening session was so poorly designed that I cannot believe this is a national firm currently policing, doing police review work in over 10 cities unless the purpose is simply to do a display of fanfare with no intention to make meaningful change,” says Simpson.
Simpson describes discrepancies in the data collection methods documented in the report versus what participants actually experienced, inaccurate directions, poor data collection techniques, and lack of time to have any meaningful discussion.
“It was so poor that I really have concerns about the veracity of the rest of the findings … In terms of trying to make an assessment of community perspectives, it was a total failure,” Simpson adds.
Council member Miller, who also attended one of the sessions echoed Simpson’s experience, saying “We really didn’t get a lot of time for us to share what we wanted to talk about from that questionnaire.”
Residents are unhappy that Mayor Marlin, without consultation with City Council, signed a contract with Hillard Heintze that cost taxpayers $20,000, only to be presented with a superficial report (article here).
During public input, not a single resident felt the review was in the public’s best interest.
“Members of the community who have been consistently calling in to City Council meetings did not ask for this review and raised significant concerns about Hillard Heintze, their credentials, and their association with police officers … I recommend that you look closely at the assumptions at the heart of this review, at the way that it is framed, first and foremost as a defense of police and policing, not legitimate experiences or the input of the community,” says a resident.
I think it is quite troubling that the officers were absolved of any misconduct just because their actions were measured against a flawed and outdated use of force policy,” comments another community member.
Along the same lines, Cunningham Township Supervisor, Danielle Chynoweth adds, “I really want to emphasize the contradiction in the report. On the one hand, it deeply criticizes the gaps in the use of force policy, and then it absolves the police of wrongdoing against this fundamentally flawed and dangerous use of force policy.”
“I think a laughable part of the report is they say no formal complaint alleging excessive force was received, so internal affairs did not investigate the incident. In fact, hundreds of written complaints were made to the city, including an eyewitness who complained directly to the mayor. Multiple formal complaints were filed, they’ve been dismissals,” Chynoweth adds.
Other issues brought up during public input were that the Hillard Heintze review does not dig into the harm that use of force causes to the victim, and the review fails to address racism and discrimination in policing.
Despite all the criticism and concern brought up by the community, Mayor Marlin remained positive about her decision to hire Hillard Heintze.
“I think the suggestions and recommendations were excellent and we should make every effort to incorporate them into our policy,” said Marlin.
“It’s pretty clear that this report and everything we’ve heard tonight, you know, is the first step,” Marlin added, even though in the past five months, hundreds of comments, including recommendations have already been brought forward to City Council by the public.
Moving forward, the public continued to call for meaningful action by Mayor Marlin and Council members.
“It is clear based on the feedback that was received, and the feedback that you have been receiving for months that there is a lot of work to be done. To be clear, this review is not the work. I implore you not to treat this review as an indication that you have done something,” says a resident.
The entire September 8th, 2020, Urbana City Council Public Input session can be viewed here:
Documents from the Hillard Heintze review