Urbana Civilian Police Review Board Chair Wants to See Fewer Taser Usage Videos Because They’re Boring

Grace Mitchell, the Chair of the Urbana Civilian Police Board (CPRB), make a remarkable proclamation at the September 25^th, 2019 CPRB meeting: review fewer Taser usages. The reason appears to be that they simply aren’t exciting enough. Mitchel said:

“We don’t have to see all or so many, maybe we could randomly select videos to look at and process, randomly, so we won’t be looking at details of all videos, cause some videos we are only looking at the ground, or looking at the tree, I see that as something we don’t need to do.”

The Urbana Police Department representative in charge of presenting these videos, Lieutenant Richard H Surles, was quick to agree with Mitchell, suggesting they use “every 5^th video, or random number generator”. Surles, who is compensated about $120,000/yr by the City of Urbana, takes time at every CPRB meeting to complain about the time he has to spend preparing videos for review.

The first problem this raises is that the CPRB is required by law to review every Taser usage. This requirement is written into the CPRB Ordinance, and there is no allowance given for choosing every fifth video, choosing randomly, or anything other than reviewing every single Taser usage. Only the City Council can change the ordinance.

The real problem was that throughout the CPRB discussion on this issue, no one considered the possibility that Taser usage videos tend not to be very exciting precisely because police officers realize that every time they unholster their weapon, their actions will be fully reviewed.

Ultimately, the CPRB voted not to review all Taser incidents, which will no doubt cause great headaches down the road, since such a vote simply isn’t legal. A full article on the September 25^th, 2019 CPRB meeting can be found here: Urbana Civilian Police Review Board Votes to End Mandatory Taser Camera Reviews of All Taser Displays